


Don't Forget Where You Belong

by reddhede



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birth, F/M, Harry in Love, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Zayn One Direction, Rape/Non-con Elements, Unplanned Pregnancy, almost proposal, break up/make up/break up/make up, did i mention there was angst, good thing Harry loves all babies equally, poor communication skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-03-01 08:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddhede/pseuds/reddhede
Summary: After all the personal and professional scandals, things finally seem to start going right for Harry Styles.  He's doing what he loves for a living with his best mates and he's found the girl he wants to spend the rest of his life with.But one night - and one secret - alters the courses of their lives forever.





	1. Last First Kiss

“Ugh, Harry do we have to go to this party?” Mia whined, lounging on the bed in sweatpants with no intention of moving.

His bottom lip stuck out in a pout, but the telling crease between his eyebrows that would indicate true displeasure was absent.  “Babe, we just signed a huge record deal with a new label.”

“I know _you_ have to go, but do _we_ have to go?”  Dating Harry Styles had its perks – god, did it have its perks – but the endless stream of public appearances and social gatherings was exhausting.  Harry was outgoing, but he was still rather introverted and private; honestly, she didn’t know how he did it.  Years of practice after being thrown into the deep end, she supposed.  “Why do our date nights always involve champagne and Gucci suits?  Have you finally forgotten what it’s like to be a normal person?”

Harry spun around and narrowed his eyes; this particular issue was a sore spot with him, and the smirk on her face indicated that she knew exactly which buttons she was pushing.  He plastered on his own evil grin.  “I could be convinced to stay home.”  He stalked a few steps toward the bed.  “Have a quiet night in.”  He lifted one knee up on the bed and crawled over top of her.  “With you,” he whispered, just inches between them.

Mia pushed herself up, her lips just barely brushing his before they skimmed along his chiseled jaw, making their way over to his ear.  She pressed a feather-light kiss to his temple as her hands traveled up his torso, beneath the slim cut of his jacket, and molded to the curves of his neck.  “Well, if that’s what you want…”  She lingered for a moment longer, letting her soft breaths raise goosebumps on his sensitive skin, then pulled back abruptly.  “Then you know what you’ve gotta do, Styles.”

Harry groaned, in actual physical pain, as she rolled out from under him.  He rested his head on his forearm for a few seconds to regain control of his arousal before flopping on his side to stare up at the infuriating goddess looming over him.  “You will be the death of me, woman.”

“Hey, you knew what you were getting into.  No sex before marriage.”  She shrugged and Harry did not know how she could possibly have made it 21 years without having given into the temptation.  He loved that about her, that strength and commitment; he just really, really wished she would put it to better use than making him miserable.

“But you love me,” he mumbled, still face down in the comforter.

Mia sighed.  They’d had this conversation a lot, and she’d be lying if she said it was easy, but she had seen firsthand how sex with the wrong person only ended in pain and heartbreak, and how even sex with the right person made things so much more complicated.  It was better this way.

She walked over and pulled a reluctant Harry to a seated position and sat on his lap.  “Of course I do.  You’re, like, my second favorite One Direction member of all time.”  When even this failed to break through his veil of misery, she tapped her index finger to his protruding bottom lip.  “Fine, I’ll go to the party with you,” she conceded.  That earned her a genuine smile and he wrapped his long arms around her waist, pulling her close and nuzzling into the crook of her neck.

When she got up, Harry followed, knowing that he was probably just going to end up picking her outfit anyway; Mia had many talents, but fashion was not one of them.  She pulled out a hideous taupe pant suit and examined it closely.  Before she had time to decide to try it on, Harry snatched it from her grasp and tossed it aside, shaking his head sadly.

“You know, I’m starting to think you might just be a masochist.”  Mia was now doubly irked, both at having agreed to go to this shindig and at being judged for her outfit choices.  Harry cocked an eyebrow at her, more curious than offended.  “I mean, you could be with anyone,” she turned back to the rack of clothes, “literally _anyone_ ,” she muttered a little more bitterly than intended.  She pulled out a green sequin gown and held it up hopefully.

“You’re not going to the Academy Awards, love,” he said gently, again removing the garment from her possession.

“And yet you choose to be with someone that refuses your physical advances,” she continued, refusing to acknowledge his snide remark.

“I like a challenge.”

“It’s been over a year.”

Harry smiled listening to her ramble on about his self-inflicted pain; he would gladly endure celibacy if it was the price he had to pay for the privilege of loving her.  He was hoping that particular sacrifice would soon be coming to an end, though, as he fiddled with the small ring box that remained hidden in his pants pocket.

“Why do you look like that?”  Harry had had a distant, almost dreamy look in his eyes, but they snapped back to attention when she spoke.

“Like what?” he asked innocently, hastily removing his hands from his pockets.

“I swear, if you try anything close to that stunt you pulled for our anniversary…”

Harry gave a practiced cough, trying and failing to cover his laughter, and she smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

“What?  I swear – no power tools or live animals of any kind tonight.”  Mia pursed her lips, assessing his innocence.  Harry reached around her and grabbed a royal blue shift dress.  “This one.”  He held it at arm’s length, and it was only a few seconds of eye rolling and disgruntled sighing before she took it and trudged toward the bathroom.

Harry was lucky enough to have a career that happened to keep a professional stylist on staff, and as such always appeared very put together.  Mia didn’t have that luxury, but she also didn’t need it.  She could make t-shirts and messy buns look elegant and sophisticated, so when she exited the bathroom dressed to the nines, it took his breath away.

Mia walked out of the bathroom slowly, cautiously, both because of the unnecessarily tall heels and because, well, she was uncomfortable with the whole hairpins and makeup deal.  “Well?” she prompted when Harry didn’t respond.

There were so many things he wanted to say to her in that moment, but he was terrified that if he so much as opened his mouth, the words _marry me_ might just accidentally slip out ahead of schedule.  Instead, he went and stood in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders as delicately as if she were made of glass, then slid them down her arm to intertwine their fingers.

Before she had a chance to ask again, he pivoted and made a beeline for the door, dragging her along behind him.  A car was waiting for them outside, but this one was smaller than the SUV that usually transported the boys.  When he opened the door for her, she realized why.

“Aren’t we short three bodies?”  Mia scanned the interior of the car suspiciously; the boys didn’t usually pull pranks on anyone except each other, but she had spent too long getting ready to risk ending up on her ass on the perpetually wet streets of London.

“I thought we might just want it to be you and me tonight.”  Especially at the end of the night, when, if all went well, he would be able to call her his fiancée.

“You’re not wrong.”  Louis and Liam always seemed to pregame a little too hard, and were often already loud and rowdy by the time they actually showed up to the party.  Niall was just always loud and rowdy by nature, drunk or not.

They cuddled up in the backseat together, enjoying the peace and solitude before the barrage of photographers that were surely gathered outside the entrance to the party.  Harry always handled himself so well, but Mia wasn’t sure it would ever be something she was comfortable with; and so she was grateful when he got out first, diverting the aim of the flashing bulbs long enough for her to slip out of the car without being smothered.  As soon as Harry was by her side, though, the blinding lights turned on her too.

He guided her through the crowd with a hand at the small of her back, and once they were through security, she could finally think, finally breathe again.

“Alright, love?”

“Alright.”  Mia nodded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath while leaning into Harry’s side.

“Oi, oi!” someone hollered from across the foyer.

Mia didn’t even have to open her eyes to recognize that greeting.   “Hey, Louis.”

He smothered Harry in an overly affectionate hug before turning to Mia; he held his arms wide open, but her response was taking too long for his liking.  Louis crouched down to her level and squeezed his arms around her waist, picking her feet fully off the floor and twirling her around.

“Put her down,” Liam scolded, joining them.  Louis stuck his tongue out at him, but obeyed.  Once she was on stable ground once again, Liam gave her a chaste peck on the cheek.  “Gorgeous as always.”

“You do know how to make a guy blush,” Louis responded to the compliment, fanning himself and pretending to swoon.  Liam rolled his eyes.

“Where’s Niall?” Mia asked.

“Whatcha need him for, eh?  You’ve got me!”  Louis spread his arms out and struck a pose.

“Started the party a little early tonight, Lou?” she asked, joining Liam in his eye rolling.

“S’always a party with me around, love,” he said with a wink.

“Hey,” Harry protested with mock indignation.

“Your own fault, mate.”  Louis shrugged.  “With a girl like Mia, here, ya snooze ya lose.  You really ought to make an honest woman out of her, and soon; I’m surprised she hasn’t left you alr-“  His words were cut off with a violent elbow to the ribs from Harry, who appeared even more miffed than usual at Louis’ ramblings.

There was an awkward moment of silence before Liam cleared his throat and piped in with some useful information.  “Niall’s over there talking to Alex.”  He nodded toward the other room.

“Our new label manager,” Harry explained.

“Which is probably what we should be doing as well.”

Harry gave her a questioning look – he should probably be mingling, but he wouldn’t leave her if she didn’t want him to.

“Yeah, of course.  Of course, go.”  Mia shooed Harry off with his buddies, offering an encouraging smile and overly enthusiastic thumbs up.  Not that they needed luck at this point; they were already signed.  Still, the fallout from losing Zayn and the uncertainty of moving to a new label was enough to make anyone nervous.

Mia grabbed a glass of wine and inserted herself casually into one of the conversational groups; by this point she had learned how to schmooze and mingle like a professional, and it wasn’t long before she had them in stitches.  She would like to claim it as a result of her own quick wit, but she was pretty sure the empty shot glasses in their hands had a little something to do with it.

Harry looked up when he heard another roar of laughter, and smiled when he saw Mia at the center of it; she was incredibly smart and funny and kind, and for a second his confidence wavered.  They had been together for over a year, but would she really want to spend the rest of her life getting harassed by people she didn’t know and going to parties she didn’t want to attend?

As if by instinct, Mia felt his eyes on her; she looked around and saw an almost pained expression on Harry’s face.

“Excuse me,” she murmured with a polite smile, withdrawing from the increasingly intoxicated circle.  She sidled up next to Harry and encircled his waist.  He laid an arm across her shoulders and hugged her close, kissing the crown of her head.

“Mia’s here!” Louis cheered.

“Hey guys.”  She acknowledged each of the boys with a smile before turning to the stranger amongst them.  “I’m Mia,” she said, extending her hand.

“Alex.”

When he shook her hand, she was not surprised by the overly firm grip or the rigid, deliberate shake.  He was an executive, and everything from the architecturally perfect hair to the understated but obviously expensive power suit screamed _alpha male._

“Shit, s’about showtime, lads.”

“Stay right here and we’ll be back soon, yeah?”  Mia nodded and Harry lifted her hand up to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss into her knuckles.  “Take good care of her while I’m gone.”  Mia was about to protest the patronizing sentiment when he continued, “She’s my everything.”

Well, how could she be mad at him for that?  Harry flashed her a quick smile before retreating through the door to catch up with the other boys.

“I can take you to watch them from backstage, if you’d prefer,” Alex offered when she frowned at their retreating forms.

“Really?”  He nodded.  “I guess it pays to know a guy.”  She loved watching Harry perform; she knew he always looked for her face, but also admitted that the lights blinded him to 95% of the people in the audience.  This way, they’d both be able to enjoy the performance.

Alex offered his arm and she hooked hers through it, allowing him to lead her through the doors that the boys had disappeared through.  It opened up into a long interior hallway; large windows hung between some of the doors, revealing a peek into beautiful sound stages and recording booths.  She audibly gasped when they passed by a room that appeared to house a full symphony’s worth of instruments.

“A little indulgent for my taste,” Alex commented.

“Is this where the boys will be recording?”

“It’s available to them if they want.  But our label has many of these little gems stashed all over the world: Milan, Tokyo, New York.”

She supposed it was meant to impress her, but it also reminded her of the nostalgic way Harry always described the early days of One Direction, when all they needed was a couple guitars and a large passenger van to produce their music.  But this was progress; their sound was getting more mature and experienced, and deserved all the bells and whistles to which they now had access.

The familiar notes of Last First Kiss started blaring through the speakers; an odd choice of song for the evening, but it was one of her favorites.  Harry would often claim that Mia held that title in regards to him; she was never quite sure if he was serious or not, but it nevertheless gave her butterflies every time he said so.

“Guess we’d better get in there,” she prompted, unsure which door led to the stage area.

Alex looked down appraisingly at her for a moment before grinning.  “I suppose you’re right.”

He opened a door to his right and pulled her through.  It was dark and starkly quiet – probably an insulated recording room – so she heard when the door closed and the lock clicked definitively.

“What –“

Mia didn’t even have time to finish her question before his lips were on hers, his hands roaming freely down her back, over her hips, squeezing into the flesh of her thighs.  She was absolutely stunned to the point of paralysis, and those few seconds of inaction would cost her everything.  She knew she should do something – kick out, scratch, scream – but both her body and mind had gone numb.  It was as if she was observing the whole thing from a distance, powerless to intervene.

“I saw the way you were looking at me out there,” he murmured, his lips just below her ear.  He slid his hand up her thigh, hiking up her dress and tugging the lacy material of her undergarments to the side.  “I know you want this.”  When he slipped a finger inside her, she finally, finally found her voice.

“No!” she wailed, shrinking backward.  “Get the hell away from me.”  She’d meant the words to be seething and assertive, but they came out breathy and weak.

“Now, now, don’t play hard to get.”  He was twice her size and easily pinned her body against the wall, her scared defensive punches doing little against his well-muscled torso.  He kissed her again, not usually so sentimental with his conquests, but damn if she wasn’t all sweet and innocent.  “Don’t be scared, gorgeous.  You’re gonna like this.”

Mia squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating his next move.  Everything inside her tensed up as he unzipped his pants and yanked her leg up at an awkward angle and again she thought she should _do_ something.  Anything.

“Please,” she begged.  “Don’t.” 

He paused just long enough to make her think that just maybe he was reconsidering.  Then in one swift motion, he was fully inside her.

And it _hurt_.

He pumped his hips against her once, twice, the dry friction causing even more pain than the initial unwelcome thrust.  Her cries only seemed to spur him on, and eventually all the fight went out of her; she’d already lost anyway.  After what could have been seconds or minutes, she felt him shudder and a sickening warmth filled her core.  Alex lingered for just a moment, his forehead leaning against her chest and fingertips trailing up her limp arms in a mockery of a tender gesture, before pulling out and away.

Mia was shaking from head to toe, the adrenaline and trauma leaving her an aching mess.

“Thanks for the shag, gorgeous.  I won’t tell if you won’t.”  He actually winked at her as he readjusted his suit before walking nonchalantly into the hallway as if nothing had happened.

The boys were coming up on the last chorus of the song, and Harry still couldn’t spot Mia anywhere in the crowd.  This was supposed to be his moment; the ring was in his pocket and he had a speech prepared – all he needed was the girl.  He knew she wasn’t one for such public displays, especially for such a momentous occasion as this.  But what the hell, this was his proposal, and he wanted to show off the impossibly perfect girl he intended to marry.

As the song came to its end, though, and she was still nowhere in sight, he conceded that he might have to modify his plans.  Maybe he should do this in private anyway; he still wasn’t entirely convinced she’d say yes.  Without saying a word to his bandmates, he waded back into the crowd to try and find her, unable to wait another minute to ask her to be his wife.

“Where’s he off to?” Niall asked, pointing at Harry’s retreating form.

“Probably to find his girl,” Louis guessed.  Though he hadn’t told him explicitly, Louis and Harry had been best friends for a long time; he knew when something was up, and he suspected it had to do with that little ‘family visit’ Harry took up to his mum’s that may or may not have included the handoff of a family heirloom ring.

“He may just lose her forever if he doesn’t put a ring on that ‘fore too long.”

“Right?  S’what I’m sayin’.” 

Niall packed up his guitar while Liam assisted in winding up cables so that no one tripped in between sets – always was the overly responsible one – but Louis was in need of sustenance.  He exited the backstage door and saw a slightly disheveled Alex walk out of one of the doors down the hall.  “Right on, mate,” he mumbled under his breath with a knowing smirk.  Louis wanted to find food, but he ended up meandering slowly up and down the hallway for a few minutes, pretending to look busy.  He passed by the green room several times before admitting to himself that he just wanted to see who Alex had gone and shagged.  He paused in his pacing, caught between his own curiosity and the fact that it was none of his damn business.  _Ah, screw it_.  “Let’s see who’s behind door number three.”

He was just reaching for the handle when it swung open wide in his grasp.

 “Mia?”  Her head was bowed and she raced past him, but he was sure it had been her.  Louis would have followed, but he was honestly shocked into both silence and inaction.  A waiter walked by with a half-full tray of hors d’oeuvres, but his appetite had disappeared as quickly as Mia had.

Mia slipped into the ballroom as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.  It wasn’t the most ideal path, having to wade through an ocean of intoxicated label reps, but she was unfamiliar with the place and it was the only way she was positive would lead to the exit.  So she kept her head down and skirted the perimeter.

The anxiety had been building with every step, and when she darted into the blissfully empty foyer she let out an audible sigh.  One hand was braced against an ornate pillar; the other clutched helplessly at her chest as the frantic heartbeat beneath pounded against it, drowning out any sounds that didn’t belong to her own circulatory system.

Someone grabbed her elbow, pushing her traumatized heart to beat even faster than she thought possible.  She wanted to pull away or scream, but her entire body was shaking and she had to lean back against the rigid stone just to remain upright.

“Mia?  Mia!  What’s wrong?”  Harry’s frantic voice penetrated the haze of fear that had been drowning out rationality.  “Look at me, baby.  Open your eyes.”

When her heartbeat had slowed to a sprint, Mia finally had enough voluntary control to crack open her eyes.  Harry was crouched down in front of her, his hand curled around her face as his thumbs swiped along her cheeks.  She brought her own hand up and was surprised that it came away wet and smudged with black.  She didn’t even remember starting to cry.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”  It wasn’t a question, it was a demand; he’d never seen her like this and it was scaring the shit out of him.

“S-sick.”  It was true.  She could feel the bile at the base of her throat.

“You don’t feel well?”  This was a question; being ill was hardly a plausible explanation for her current state.  As if to answer, Mia leaned to the side and deposited the contents of her stomach into the nearest planter.  Harry wrapped his arm around her – a gesture of comfort he always employed when she was sick – but she shrugged him off.  “I’ll go call for the car,” he said, since he apparently couldn’t offer her much else.

In a matter of seconds, Harry had dashed out the door, given the valet the ticket that would summon his car, and was back by Mia’s side.  Her knees were pulled up to her chest with her head buried between them.  “I want to go home.”

“It’ll just be a minute.  Promise.”  He kissed the top of her head, and didn’t miss the soft whimper that escaped her lips.  Again, he was worried about her.  “Are you –“

“Everything alright out here?” 

Mia’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice that would haunt her dreams.  Alex sounded genuinely concerned, and his eyes displayed an appropriate amount of sympathy; but now that she knew what he was, the words seemed to mock her, to pour salt in the wound that he himself had inflicted.

“Mia’s not feeling well tonight,” Harry explained on her behalf.  “I guilted her into coming with me; as usual, I should have listened to her,” he added, knowing how much she hated appearing weak in front of others.  It also had the added benefit of being true.

“That’s a shame.  We’ve only just gotten acquainted.”  Alex smiled, somehow both sweet and sinister.

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get to know each other later.”  Harry was trying to stay cordial, but he could sense Mia’s discomfort and was trying to extricate his new manager from the conversation.  Unfortunately, his choice of words was a huge mistake, and Alex’s smile simply grew.

“Your car, Mr. Styles,” the attendant called from the door.

Mia scrambled along the marble floor, using the wall of the grand staircase – several meters from her present company – to pull herself to a standing position.

“I’m going home,” she repeated, and Harry straightened up to follow.  “Alone.”

“I’m not just going to let you –“

“Let me?  _Let_ me?  You don’t _let_ me do anything.”

“You know that’s not what –“

“You want to order me around?  Then put me on the payroll!”

“What?  What are you -?  That’s not –“

“Save it.  I can’t- I can’t be with you right now.”  She knew it was unfair – Harry didn’t do anything wrong – but it was still the truth.  Harry closed the distance between them; he lifted his arms to embrace her, then thought better of it.  He was staring so intently into her eyes, searching them for the answers her lips refused to give.  “Please, Haz.”  Mia finally broke first, choosing instead to gaze at the gilded streaks veining the floor tiles.  “Just let me go.”

“Okay.”  Every instinct screamed at him not to let her walk out those doors, but his naturally protective – some might call it possessive – nature had cost him more than one relationship in his past.  He refused to make the same mistake with the one with whom he wanted to spend his whole future.  “Okay,” he said again, as much to himself as to Mia.  “I’ll hitch a ride with the boys.”  He offered her a tentative smile, which went unreturned as she shuffled toward the waiting valet.

“Women.”  Alex shrugged, clapping Harry on the shoulder.  “She’ll be back to normal in, oh, another 4-7 days, yeah?” he said with a wink.

Harry frowned.  He had grown up in a house of strong women, and the tendency for men to blame their partner’s reactions on hormonal fluctuations irked him to no end.  “I should go make sure she’s alright.”

“Harry, Harry, come on, man.  This night is about you – you’re celebrating.”  Harry still looked torn, so Alex played the card that he knew would persuade him to stay at the party.  “It’s a big night for them, too.”  He nodded toward the ballroom, where Niall and Liam could clearly be heard shouting at each other about food consumption etiquette at a catered event.  “They’re enjoying themselves, and you should too.  You’ve got one more song to play together, then… I’m sure they’ll understand if you want to duck out early.”

Harry sighed.  He could see through Alex’s tactics – he’d encountered enough executives to know how their minds worked, and he didn’t doubt that there were many important promoters in attendance that needed to be impressed by his newest clients.  But more than that, Zayn had just abandoned them.  They were still adjusting to being a group of four, and asking them to perform as a trio at the last minute was not something he wanted to force on them.

“This is not how I imagined my night going,” Harry said on another sigh, mussing up his hair in frustration as he followed Alex back into the ballroom.

“You’re not the only one, I’m sure,” Alex muttered with a smirk to himself.

Harry plastered on as genuine a smile as he could manage, but his mind – and heart – remained with the girl that had just walked out. 

And the paranoid part of him started to wonder if maybe she had been walking out on more than just the party.


	2. Moments

Harry tried texting and calling a couple times, but after receiving no response from Mia the only way he could ease his anxiety was through a few drinks beyond what would be considered responsible.  The boys performed, both one of their songs and then later in the night some impromptu karaoke favorites, and Harry honestly began to actually enjoy the evening festivities.

When the party finally came to a close, the boys all barreled through the waiting line of paparazzi and piled into the back of a large SUV.  Harry’s house was the furthest away, so he was the last to be dropped off by the car service.  He stumbled up the walkway and, after a few tries, slid the key into the lock to go inside and sleep through what he hoped would be a mild hangover.

Without bothering to turn on the lights, he felt his way over to the stairs; luckily, his bedroom was the first door on the left and difficult to miss even while intoxicated.  He flopped down on the mattress, breathing a sigh of relief when the world stopped spinning.

Something felt off, though, and when Harry turned to his side he realized what it was – there was no one beside him to even out the dip in the bed.  Mia’s half was untouched, the bedspread still tucked neatly beneath and around the plush pillow.  He smiled, thinking about the many squabbles they’d gotten into over that simple act – Harry insisted that making the bed every morning was an essential step in starting the day off productively, whereas Mia couldn’t rationalize taking a precious extra few minutes in the wee hours of the morning to accomplish a task that would just be undone that same evening.

Missing his counterpart, Harry forced himself upright once again.  He found Mia curled up on the couch, clutching a pillow tightly to her chest.  She must have showered – her hair was still wet and clung to her neck, and all she wore was an oversized t-shirt.  Her breathing was slow and even, but her eyes were puffy and the sensitive skin beneath her nose was red and raw, as though she had cried herself to sleep.

“How can I make it better?” he asked, brushing his fingertips across the fabric that was still damp from her tears.  Though still in the grip of unconsciousness, the moisture again fell from her eyes.  As carefully as he could in his slightly uncoordinated state, Harry crawled around and slid behind Mia on the couch, pulling her tightly against his chest.  She quieted, surrounded by the warm embrace of his strong arms, and he kissed the top of her head.  “I love you, and I wish I could have asked you what I wanted to tonight,” he confessed into her matted hair before drifting off to join her in sleep.

Harry awoke to empty arms, which he stretched and twisted in an attempt to shake off the awkward angles in which he’d left them for so long.  It wouldn’t have been unusual – though he was a morning person, Mia was often up before him – except that there were no clanking sounds coming from the kitchen that would indicate she was making coffee or breakfast.  Instead, she had awoken at some point during the night and chosen to finish the night alone on the loveseat.  It wasn’t really big enough for two, so Harry had to assume that it was because she wanted to be alone.

He frowned.  Had he done something wrong last night?  Something to make her angry?  He didn’t think so, and so attributed her need for solitude to the illness that had come upon her so suddenly at the party.

Letting her get as much rest as she needed, Harry went up to shower and change clothes – he was still wearing a disheveled suit that reeked of stale alcohol – before making a bland breakfast that he hoped wouldn’t irritate  Mia’s stomach.  When he went to lay the plate of food on the coffee table, he was surprised to see that her eyes were open.  She was awake, but hadn’t moved or even made a noise.

“How are you feeling?”  He set the buttered toast and orange juice in front of her, but she simply turned and buried her face into the pillow.  Maybe any solid food was too much for her right now.  “Still sick?”  She didn’t respond, but he took the simple foods back out to the kitchen anyway.  “Is there anything that sounds good I can make you?”  Harry’s culinary skills were limited, but he had mastered a few of Mia’s favorites over the last year.  When she still didn’t answer, he sighed and made his way back to the living room, perching on the coffee table in front of her.  “What’s wrong, baby?”

Mia remained still.  Harry was being so sweet and considerate.  She didn’t deserve it; he didn’t know what she’d done.  He reached out and swiped the pad of his thumb beneath her eyes to wipe away the tears she could no longer feel falling – there had been so many – but she recoiled at his touch.

“I just want to sleep,” she whispered, curling in on herself and squeezing her eyes shut.

Harry pursed his lips and frowned.  “Okay.  Take all the time you need.”  He kissed her temple and retreated back to the kitchen.

Harry spent the rest of the day busying himself around the house.  He had a rare few days off before the band started work in the new studio; normally he would catch up with old friends or take Mia out on a romantic excursion, but she never roused from the near catatonia to which she’d succumbed after the party. 

On the second day, she pecked at the bits of fruit and biscuit he placed in front of her.  He took it as a sign of improvement, but pushed her a little too far when he tried to then coax her up and outside to get a bit of fresh air and sunshine.  Mia cried and nearly fell into a panic attack until Harry could convince her that it was just a suggestion and they didn’t have to go anywhere if she didn’t want to. 

She didn’t eat again for a while after that, and so he decided to keep his future suggestions to a minimum.

“I’m supposed to work today.”  Harry didn’t want to leave her – it had been almost a week, and Mia was still barely functioning.  He wanted her to protest, to beg him to stay because she so obviously needed him.  When she didn’t, he sighed.  “I can stay home if you want,” he prompted.  Still nothing.  He wasn’t sure what else he could do; he wasn’t even sure what was wrong with her.  “Call me if you need anything?  Anything at all.”  He turned her chin in his direction and held it there until her eyes found his.  “I love you.”

Mia jerked her head out of his grasp and spun to face the back of the couch.  Harry shook his head sadly and gave her one last longing look before grabbing his coat and walking out the door.

Finally alone, Mia let herself feel for the first time since the trauma.  She’d tried to be strong, but she hated herself in that moment; and she’d convinced herself that Harry would hate her too if he found out what had happened.  So she tried to keep it all in.  It was selfish, keeping this from him.  He deserved to know, but he would never look at her the same way again.  She couldn’t bear it.

But she was still losing him.  The few times she’d been able to look Harry in the eye, she’d seen so much concern, so much confusion and sadness.

It wasn’t too late, though.  Harry didn’t know what she let happen to her.  If she could just move forward – bury this deep inside, lock it up, and throw away the key – they could go back to the way things were.

Truly, that’s what Mia wanted more than anything in the whole world.

And the first step to being normal was acting normal, which meant showering and eating and leaving the house.  The thought made Mia shudder, but she took it one step at a time.  By the time Harry came home, she hoped that he would see how much better she looked, would forgive her indifference these past few days.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” Harry said on an exhale as he flopped heavily into one of the chairs in the mixing booth.

“Well what’s wrong with her exactly?” Niall asked.

Harry shrugged.  “I’ve tried looking up her symptoms, but the internet keeps leading me to a terminal diagnosis.”

“Maybe she’s depressed,” Liam suggested.  “Has an episode like this ever happened before?”

Harry shook his head.  “Never.  She’s always so… she’s the most positive and optimistic person I know.  I don’t know what happened.”

Louis was quiet throughout this exchange.  He had a pretty good idea what had happened, and there were several moments that he almost chimed in with the tidbit of information he’d witnessed.  But, knowing that Mia had slept with someone else would devastate his best friend, and Louis was selfish enough not to want to be the one to break it to him.

“Alright, break’s over, boys,” Alex waltzed into the room and clapped his hands.  “Back to recording.  We’re not paying you to sit around and gossip like middle school girls.”

All four of the boys wrinkled their nose at the analogy, but did as they were told.  Though there was no more discussion of Mia – Harry didn’t want to continue to gripe about a problem they couldn’t solve – she remained on his mind the entire day.

On his way home, Harry stopped by to pick up some flowers and a small stuffie, hoping that Mia wouldn’t somehow find offense in the gifts.  When he pulled into the garage, he mentally steeled himself for the worst; she hadn’t texted or called all day, so he had no idea what he would find inside.  What he did not expect was a fully clothed woman smiling and putting dinner on the table.

“You’re home!” she exclaimed, dancing over to him and planting a kiss on his stunned face.  “I made your favorite.”  Mia was making every effort to be the girl he remembered, the girl he fell in love with, and when he didn’t move she worried that he didn’t buy it.  “I’m sorry for being so distant these past few days.  I’ll try to do better.”

Harry was honestly at a loss.  This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it?  Something about her still seemed off; she was saying and doing all the right things, but they seemed forced, like she was acting in a play of her own life.  But he wanted to believe the lie so badly that he ignored the alarm bells going off in his head, dropped everything that he was carrying, and drew her into a deep embrace.  At first she tensed, and he thought she’d pull away again; but then she relaxed against him and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“I love you,” he repeated the last thing he’d said to her that morning, enjoying the feeling of her wrapped up in his arms.  He wasn’t sure he’d ever let go, but then she cleared her throat and pivoted slightly in his grasp.

“Are those for me?” she asked, nodded toward the forgotten items on the floor.

Harry was reluctant to loosen his grip, but released one arm in order to retrieve the roses and placed them in the crook of her elbow.  “One for every month I’ve had the privilege of knowing you.”  He grabbed the teddy bear and placed it on top of the flower pile.  “And this was just cute.”

“To My Bear-y Best Gal’ – really, Styles, with the puns?”  For a moment she sounded almost like her old self.

“Of course.  You know you like it.”

The words poured over her like ice.  It wasn’t exactly what Alex had said to her, but it was enough to cause a shadow to cross over her features.  It didn’t escape Harry’s notice, but it was gone – buried beneath a plastered smile – before he could place it.

“Let’s eat.”

As they sat down, Harry began to tell her about their day in the studio, as was their usual, but she cut him off.  Though she hadn’t done anything particularly interesting, she wasn’t sure how she would react if his new manager came up in casual conversation.  So she drabbled on about inane topics like household chores and reality tv.  Harry was just happy that she was talking, and listened intently to her stories.

This became their routine, and after several weeks, Harry convinced himself that it was normal.  The new normal, at least.  So a wave of panic hit him when he came home from work one day and found her curled up on the couch again, all evidence of the pleasant façade wiped from her face.

“Mia?  What’s wrong?”  He dropped his coat, hat, notebook, and guitar on the floor and ran over to her.  “Did something happen?”  If she was spiraling again, he would have another data point and maybe he could find out what was triggering these episodes.

She shook her head with a grimace.  “Don’t feel good,” she mumbled miserably.

Harry let out an audible breath.  She was still speaking and didn’t withdraw from the hand he’d placed on her shoulder.  This wasn’t the same as last time.

“What’s bothering you, love?”  He pressed a hand against her forehead; she didn’t feel feverish, though she was a little pale and clammy.

As if in answer to his question, she shot up off the couch and raced toward the powder room.  Harry followed closely behind and frowned as she coughed and heaved into the toilet.  He readied a cold cloth and placed it on the back of her neck.  Once she slumped forward and rested her cheek against the seat, he began drawing soothing lines up and down her back.

“Alright?”

“Not really.”

“Want me to make you some soup?”  Mia’s stomach roiled at the thought and she clenched her jaw tightly shut, shaking her head.  “How about a movie and a cuddle, then?”

“I don’t wanna get you sick.”

“I’ll risk it,” he said, reaching out a hand to help pull her up.  She took it and he cradled her for a moment in his arms, almost laughing at his relief that she simply had a stomach bug.

It turned out to be one hell of a stomach bug, though, as Mia still found herself throwing up periodically more than two weeks later.

“This is getting ridiculous.  I’m calling the doctor.” 

Mia was splayed out on their bed, fully prepared to sleep for the rest of the night despite it being 5 o’clock in the afternoon.  She had just finished another losing round with her digestive system and it left her feeling exhausted and weak.

“Don’t you dare.”  She had always hated going to the doctor; they always poked and prodded you in ways that couldn’t possibly be medically necessary, and then overcharged you for medication that would do what your body would naturally do anyway.  “I’ll be fine in a few days.”

“We don’t _have_ a few days.  We’re supposed to leave for Holmes Chapel tomorrow.”  It was his mother’s birthday, and they had been planning this trip for months.  He was supposed to have a fiancée to surprise her with, but now he wasn’t sure he’d even have a girlfriend.

“Go without me.”

“Don’t think that would go over too well – pretty sure mum likes you more than she does me.”  He had that irresistible pout in his lips.  “Please?  You can’t possibly fault me for wanting you to feel better.”

Mia rolled her eyes.  The constant nausea really was wearing her down.  “Fine.  Call the doctor.”  Harry’s wide grin revealed the dimples set deeply in his cheeks.  He kissed the top of her head and grabbed his phone before she could change her mind.  “But don’t blame me when I come back looking like a human pincushion!”

A corner of his mouth quirked up as he answered the receptionist on the other end of the line.  “Dr. Thompson, please.  Yes, I’d like to schedule an appointment.”  There were intermittent pauses as they went back and forth exchanging information.

Mia had just dragged herself out of bed, resigned that she would have to leave the house that evening, when she heard Harry’s sigh of exasperation.  “Are you sure that’s the earliest you can do?  No, no, we’ll take it.  Alright, see you tomorrow.”

“Didn’t have any late night openings for today?  Even for _the_ Harry Styles?” she teased.

Harry shook his head.  “We have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon at 3.”

“We?  Aren’t you going to be knee deep in the English countryside by then?”

“I’m not going.”

“Harry –“

“This is not up for discussion.  I’m not leaving your side until you’re better.”

Mia sat behind him and wrapped herself around his back, curling her arms around his torso and resting her chin on his shoulder.

“Go.  See you mother.  She needs you right now more than I do.”

Harry sighed.  He’d left home when he was 16 and never really came back.  His sister Gemma stayed around for a while, but she recently moved out to the city for a job and he knew that their mother was lonely.  She deserved to have both of her children there to celebrate her life.

He leaned his head against hers in concession.  “Will you at least come up and join us afterward?”

“I doubt that whatever the doctor prescribes will work instantaneously, and I’m not sure my stomach could handle several hours in a car on those windy roads by myself in its current condition.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow evening.”

“Harry.”  Her tone was an admonishment and a warning.

“I’ll just stay one night.”  Mia sighed, but it was probably the best she was going to get – he did worry about her far more than he should.  “And you’ll call if you need anything.”  It was a command moreso than a question.  “I’ll come right back.”

“Okay.”  She pulled back and kissed the bit of his shoulder on which her chin had been resting before flopping back on the bed while Harry furiously packed an overnight bag.

When Harry left the next morning, Mia didn’t even stir.  He was slightly disappointed, but he didn’t want to interrupt her sleep, so instead opted for a kiss on the forehead.  He’d made it about halfway to his hometown before a thought occurred to him, and he grabbed his phone, scrolling through his Favorites to find his best mate’s number.

“’Ey, you’re at your mum’s already?” Louis answered by way of greeting.

“Not quite.  Are you busy today?  I need a favor.”

“Nothin’ can’t be rearranged, if ya need somethin’.”

“You know I told you Mia hasn’t been feeling well, yeah?”  Louis grunted in acknowledgment.  “Well, she wasn’t up for the drive this morning, but insisted that I go on ahead to mum’s without her.”

“Did she now?”  Louis knew how difficult it was to get some private time together with a very public figure, and he found the fact that Mia had given up an entire weekend alone and away from prying eyes very suspicious.

“She’s got an appointment with the physician at 3, and she hates doctors and needles and overly sterile environments and… I just – can you make sure she actually keeps it?”

The last thing Louis wanted to do was follow around the person he’d been avoiding since the party.  On the other hand, if she was doing… well, the salacious things he thought she might be doing while Harry was away, this would provide the perfect opportunity for Louis to tell him the truth about her without coming out like the bad guy.  After all, Harry _had_ just asked him to keep tabs on her.

“Sure thing, Haz.”

Harry blew out a breath.  “You’re a lifesaver, Lou.  Take care of my girl for me.”  Louis let out a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a grumble before the line went dead.

Mia had half a mind to skip the damn doctor’s appointment, especially when she managed to keep a bit of breakfast down that morning, but she knew if she did Harry would just drag her there as soon as he got back.  The last thing she really felt like doing was getting herself looking presentable, but her motto ever since… well, the words she’d chosen to believe since then were _act normal, feel normal, be normal_.  It was only when she lost faith in believing that she would one day feel normal again that she began to withdraw and—

No.  She refused to think that way.  She could do this.

She picked out one of her more posh outfits, overcompensating for how terrible she felt on the inside, and even put on a bit of makeup.  She reached for her favorite lipstick, but as soon as she uncapped it, the memories of the last time she’d worn it – the last set of lips that had come away from her own stained in that color – came flooding back.

“Act normal, feel normal, be normal.”  She stared at herself in the mirror and repeated these words until her hands stopped shaking enough to, by sheer force of will, apply a thin coat of the color to her lips.  The sight almost made her sick, so she spun around and made her way out of the bathroom.  She had an appointment anyway.

One hand reached for the door handle while the other fumbled in her purse for the car keys.  When she pulled the door open and looked up she nearly had a heart attack.

“Jesus, Louis!”  Mia clutched a hand to her chest and leaned against the doorframe.

“Scare ya?”  Her answering glare required no verbal confirmation.  “Where are you off to?”  Alright, so he was testing her a little bit.  She looked awfully dolled up for a date with the clinic, and he wondered if she would stick with that story.

“Doctor’s.”  The adrenaline still had her heart racing, but she managed to stand up straight.

“Yeah, I know.  Harry asked me to tag along, make sure you didn’t pull anything.”  He waggled a finger at her admonishingly.

Mia’s face fell and she took on a somber tone.  “He does worry too much about me.”

“Why don’t I drive you?”  It was, after all, the best way to make sure she kept her appointment.  If she even had one.

“No, you don’t have to do that.”

“I insist.”

“Really, Lou.  I’m a big girl.  I can go to the doctor by myself.”

She was starting to sound defensive, which made Louis even more suspicious.  “Harry said –“

“Well Harry’s not here,” she hissed, skirting past him and headed toward her little Camry.

Louis grabbed her a little more roughly than necessary by the arm and spun her around, his usually genial attitude overshadowed by irritation.  “You may have decided you’re tired of him, but he’s my best friend and I’m gonna do what he asked.”

Mia couldn’t look him in the eye.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Louis wanted nothing more than to call her out right then and there, but something about her expression gave him pause.  “Just let me take you to the doctor.  S’all I’m askin’.”  _If that’s where you’re really going._

She hesitated, contemplating her options, before nodding reluctantly.

The ride over was eerily silent.  All the starts and stops of traffic had Mia’s stomach roiling, but she tried closing her eyes and breathing slowly.  It helped for a while, but soon the jerky movements and the smell of exhaust was just too much and–

“Pull over.”

“What?  We’re in the middle of—”

“Pull the damn car over!”

Mia rarely swore, and the word was enough to shock Louis into heeding her words.  Before he had even come to a complete stop, she threw the car door open and lost the contents of her breakfast into the grass on the side of the road.  With the door still open, she unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to the side, resting her head and allowing the cool breeze and sunshine to wash over her for a moment.  When she returned to her position with a swift thunk of the door, she found Louis staring at her with an odd expression.

“Guess you really are sick,” he mumbled, more to himself than anyone.  Mia didn’t know exactly what he meant by the comment, but remained silent, choosing to roll down the window for the rest of the ride over.

When they arrived at the clinic, Mia was dismayed to find out that Dr. Thompson had been called away to an emergency at the hospital and was not at the office; her appointment was still on the schedule, she’d just have to see someone else.   A stranger.  The thought almost made her spin on her heel, but with a little coaxing from Louis she was resigned to stay.

Louis remained with her, now equal parts concerned and annoyed with his current duties, while she filled out paperwork and the nurses took her vitals, asked about her symptoms, and ran a few standard diagnostic tests.  She was anxious to get out of there, but when Mia requested a prescription to help with the nausea, the nurse told her she’d have to wait for the results of the tests first.

“It’ll only be a few minutes.  Just have to rule out some things before we can give you anything.”

Louis sat in one of the chairs on the far side of the room while Mia remained on the examining table, her legs dangling over the side.  Again, the room was heavy with awkward silence until a woman, who must have been the doctor overseeing the nurses that day, entered with a somewhat perplexed look on her face.

“Ms. Harding?” she questioned, looking up from the chart at the girl sitting on the table.  Mia nodded.  “There seem to be some… inconsistencies in the results of your tests.”

“What does that mean?”  Mia had been fidgeting, but stilled at this bit of information.

“I just want to clarify some things.”  The doctor cast a sideways glance to the man in the chair.  “We can talk privately, if you’d prefer.”  Mia waved her hand dismissively, unsure what exactly she would possibly need to keep from him.  “It has to do with, um, your stated sexual history.”

Mia leaped off the bed then, practically throwing Louis out of the room and slamming the door shut behind him.  “I’ll just be in the waiting room, then?” he called from the other side of the closed door before stalking off.

Leaning heavily against the barrier separating her from Louis, Mia closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before regaining the ability to speak.  “What about my… history?”  She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Well, it’s just that you stated that you are not sexually active.”

“That’s correct.”

The doctor folded the papers she was holding shut and tucked them under her arm.  “Ms. Harding, perhaps the question wasn’t clear.  Let me rephrase.  Have you had any sort of sexual encounters with anyone within the past few months?”  Mia swallowed hard and shook her head vehemently.  The physician sighed and reached out a hand to the girl who was obviously in denial.  “Mia, can you please tell me the truth?”  Again Mia shook her head, at which point she dissolved into tears and the kind doctor wrapped her in a professional yet warm embrace.

It was several minutes before Mia had calmed down enough to speak.  “About two m-months ago.  There was… it was two months ago.”  The day would be burned into her memory forever.

“Sounds about right.”

Mia sniffled and looked up into the doctor’s sympathetic eyes.  “Did he give me something?”  All the graphic, horrifying images that accompanied the STDs they warned about in health class ran through her mind; but what if it was something more serious than a rash?  “Am I dying?”

“No, dear.  You’re going to be just fine.”

“Then… then what?  What’s wrong with me?”

“Well, you appear to be pregnant.  About seven weeks, I’d say.”

And that’s when the whole world collapsed around her.  Mia’s vision went blurry for a second, and she had just enough sense to stumble over to the small trashcan to heave up the small amount of water she’d had in the waiting room.  The doctor guided her over to a chair and spoke to her, but she couldn’t hear a word over the ringing in her ears.

It was like being violated all over again; like it’d never stopped.  Like… _he_ (she refused to call the monster by name) had claimed her and buried a piece of himself so deep inside her that she still carried it with her.  She felt dirty from the inside out, a reminder of shame and regret that could never be made clean because it was a part of her now.

“It is still early on.  You have options, Mia.”  At this, the anguished girl looked up.  “You don’t have to… continue.  With the pregnancy.”

Mia considered the option much longer than she cared to admit.  A part of her hated the thing that was growing inside her, the thing that was created in the single worst moment of her life.  But still another part of her believed that the _thing_ … was still a child.  A child that itself had done nothing wrong and had no say in how it was made – a victim in this whole thing just as much as she was.  She didn’t know if she could bring herself to raise the child, but she didn’t think she had it in her to terminate the pregnancy either.

“How long?  Do I have to decide?”

“You’ve got a little over a month before the law decides for you.”

By the time Mia had collected herself enough to return to the lobby, Louis had been waiting for over an hour already and was right fuming.  “Jesus, woman, what hell’d they put you through then?” he asked, taking in the state of her.

“Take me home, please.”  Her voice was barely a whisper and she couldn’t look her companion in the eye.

Louis allowed her the entire – very silent – ride home to offer up an explanation.  When he didn’t get one by the time they’d pulled into Harry’s driveway, Louis put the car in park and locked the doors, turning to face her.

“So you’re not gonna tell me, then?”  Mia undid her seatbelt and folded her hands in her lap, careful not to turn any attention to the driver.  “Alright, we’ll do this the hard way.  I know what happened at the launch party.”  Louis wasn’t an idiot; he put two and two together, and whatever was happening had something to do with that night.  Mia spun around, eyes wide and mouth bobbing like a fish as she struggled to get words out.  “Oh, now look who wants to talk.  Well, too late.  S’my turn.  Now, I don’t know what sort of infection or parasite or whatever Alex gave you that night that those pills are supposed to cure.”

Mia glanced down at the prenatal vitamins the doctor had prescribed.  “Louis, it’s not –“

“I don’t care.  I honestly don’t give a shit.”  He was gripping the steering wheel so tight now that his knuckles were paper white.  “My best friend is madly in love with you and you had sex with someone else.”

“But –“

“He hasn’t had sex in over a _year._ God, do you even know how hard that was—is—for him?  And here you are getting some on the side.  I knew the whole doe-eyed innocence thing was too perfect, too pure to be true.  He doesn’t deserve this.  He deserves better.”

“You’re right.”  Mia had been thinking the same thing.  Harry deserved the best.  He was all things kind and considerate and sweet in this world, and he deserved someone worthy of that character.  She might have thought herself his match before, but she couldn’t still be.  She was broken, tainted, and would never feel worthy of being loved by him.  “What do you think I should do?”

Alright, Louis had to give her credit; the admission had come easier than he’d expected.  “I think you owe him a bit of honesty.  Tell him what happened; then let _him_ decide what to do about it.”  Having said his peace, Louis unlocked the doors.  As Mia reached for the handle he added, “If you don’t, I will.”


	3. Where Do Broken Hearts Go

When Harry had arrived in Holmes Chapel – alone – he got a thorough chastising from Anne about abandoning his poorly girlfriend just to see her.  Gemma  was similarly disappointed, though for different reasons; she loved her brother, but Mia was like a sister and Gemma rather enjoyed having her around to chat about books and travel and boys (even if that boy disgustingly happened to be her brother).

He had hoped for a good morning text, and expected a text as soon as Mia’s appointment was over.  By dinnertime, he’d tried to call Mia and then Louis, but neither of them were picking up.  He worried his bottom lip between his teeth as his mum came up behind and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Go home to her, baby boy.”

“Can’t.  Promised I’d stay the night,” he said absently, his mind already having traveled back to London.

“Even if it’s my one birthday wish for you to be with the one you love tonight?” she asked innocently. 

Harry swiveled in her grasp and looked up at her with hopeful eyes.  “Mum.”

“Oh don’t ‘mum’ me.  I survived many years in this world before you were born; I can spare you this one night.”  He thought he couldn’t love her anymore than he already did, but at this he pulled her into a tight hug, swaying them both back and forth.  “Alright.  Alright, now.  Easy, love.”

After a quick kiss to her temple, Harry pulled away.  “Thanks, mum.  I love you.”

“And I, you.  My sweet baby boy.”  She cupped her fingers around his chin, shaking his jaw gently in her grasp before nudging him toward the stairwell to gather his things.

The drive back to London wasn’t so far, but Harry still found himself unnecessarily anxious.  He’d had a bad feeling about leaving in the first place, and the closer he got to home the worse that feeling became.  His fears were only heightened when he pulled into the driveway only to find it empty.

Mia wasn’t home. 

It was the middle of the night and Mia wasn’t home. 

What did that mean?  Harry again pulled out his mobile and tried to contact first Mia, then Louis.  Again, there was no answer. 

His anxiety spiking, Harry rushed into the house.  It felt… different.  He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but there was something very wrong there.  His eyes landed upon a crisp white envelope that had Mia’s delicate, curvy script written on the front.  As he tore it open and began scanning the words, his stomach dropped.

“No.  Nononono,” he mumbled to himself, dropping the letter and racing up the stairs, taking them two at a time.  “No,” he repeated again, his eyes scanning the bedroom for any trace of her.  But all Mia’s clothes had been hastily torn from the closet.  Her light floral scent still lingered in the bathroom, but all her toiletries had been removed, leaving only a faint outline of dust where they had once been stationed.

Harry refused to just accept her departure so easily, though her letter had requested he do so.  He continued to call her incessantly, and even hopped back into the car to physically search for her.  He knocked on neighbors’ doors.  He rung up any mutual friends, though few picked up at that hour.  He sought out any bar that happened to be open nearby.  He searched and searched until the sun came up, and only then did he return home and only because he almost ran himself off the road with exhaustion and he would not be able to continue looking if he were dead.

When he slogged back into his living room empty-handed, Harry didn’t have the will or the energy to make it up the stairs.  His head told him that he could continue the search in a few hours, but something in his heart told him that he’d already lost her.  That he’d been losing her for weeks but he was just been too stubborn or naïve or optimistic to admit it.  And now – whatever it was, whatever he’d done – it was too late to fix it.

Louis waited a respectable amount of time before establishing contact with Harry.  He’d seen the phone calls that first night, but Harry should have still been in Holmes Chapel then; Maya wouldn’t have had the opportunity to tell him about her infidelity yet, and Louis wasn’t sure he could hold another conversation with his best friend without blurting out what he knew.  Now that several days had gone by, though, he was concerned that Harry had stopped calling.  If she had told him, surely he would have called, yeah?

Which was how Louis found himself pulling up to Harry’s place in the middle of the day, when they were supposed to be writing in the studio.  Harry had bailed without a word, and Louis offered to be the one to check in on him.  There was no answer to his knock on the door, so Louis used his spare key to let himself into the house.

“Fuckin’ hell, Harry!” he exclaimed upon entering the room.  It looked as though a tornado had ravaged the first floor.  Louis crawled and sidestepped his way over to where Harry was laid out on the couch.  “Care to explain why it looks like thieves ripped through your house and forgot to take anything?”  When Harry’s eyes met his, Louis saw that they were red-rimmed and puffy.  “Harry –“

“What happened?”  His voice was thick and cracked like dry play-doh. 

“I believe I asked you the same question.”  Harry’s eyes flickered toward the coffee table, and Louis picked up the note that sat at the top of the pile, wrinkled and torn as if it had weathered all matter of elements.  He read it aloud as Harry mouthed along, seeming to have memorized the last words the love of his life had left him.  “My dearest Harry.  I’m sorry to leave like this, but you deserve so much more than what I can offer you.  I have never lied to you before, so please believe me when I tell you that this is what’s best.  You have been and always will be the greatest love of my life.  I wish you every happiness.  Mia.”  Louis folded the note back up and pursed his lips. 

“She’s gone, Lou.”

“Fucking coward,” Louis muttered.  She didn’t have the balls to tell Harry after all; just left him all confused and pining without having to take any of the blame.  “Good riddance.”

“How can you say that?  God, I was gonna marry her!  Why the hell would she do this?”  For a moment, Louis almost felt guilty.  He had given Mia an ultimatum that she obviously wasn’t ready to face, and now Harry was the one paying the price.  “What did I do?  Why did she leave me?”

Louis’ brief moment of guilt was quickly overtaken by anger.  “No.  Don’t you dare fucking think this was your fault.”  She had fucked this up and now Harry was blaming himself for it.  “This is all on her.”

Harry shook his head, taking what looked like all of his strength to push himself up to a sitting position.  “No, it _is_ my fault.  I knew something was wrong.  God, I _knew_ something was wrong and I just… left.  I left her.  So she left me.  I deserve this.”

Louis walked over and knelt down in front of Harry so that they were at eye level.  “No one deserves this.”  He placed a hand on Harry’s knee and squeezed, trying to find the right words to voice the truth that wasn’t his to tell, that he shouldn’t have ever had to tell.

“Hurts, Lou,” Harry whispered weakly, as if a desperate confession from a dying man.  It certainly felt that way.

In that moment, Louis decided that his best friend had suffered enough.  Mia was gone, and knowing the real reason why would only make it worse.  This may be hard, but at least Harry could move on without knowing just how deeply and irrevocably he had been betrayed.  Louis could spare him from that at least.

“I know.  I know it hurts now, but we’ll get through this, yeah?  Just like we always do.”  They had been there for each other through some of the hardest moments of their lives – when Louis’ mum and Harry’s step-dad had passed, when one of their best friends turned his back on them, when they turned to drugs and alcohol to just get through the insanity that was their lives.

They would get through this too.  Together.

It took about three months and countless breakup song demos before the boys finally found some semblance of normalcy.  Their writing started to steer back toward the upbeat pop their fans went crazy over.  They cracked jokes and drank and went to fashion shows.  Louis thought that Harry had finally moved on when he saw him leaving with one of the models from said fashion show – the tabloids certainly seemed to think so – and came into the studio the next morning with a pile of papers in his hand and an extra spring in his step.

“I found her!”

“A horizontal gymnastics partner?  Yeah, I noticed that.”  Louis wanted to make a joke about how rusty Harry probably was after being so long out of practice, but caught himself before it brought back memories of… _her_.

Harry wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in the air dismissively.  “We’re just friends.”

“Uh huh.”  Louis rolled his eyes – Harry needed to loosen up.  “Then who?  Didn’t know you were lookin’ for anyone.”  Harry shoved the printed article he was holding into Louis’ hands and pointed excitedly at the name of the author.  “Amelia Parker?”  Didn’t sound familiar.

“It’s her, Lou.  It’s Mia.  She’s been writing articles for this local radio station outside of London.”  It was somewhat of a pseudonym – the longer version of her first name and the last name of one of her many stepfathers.  “She’s even done a few phone interviews with artists and… it’s her, I know it is.”  That was how they’d first met, and he’d recognize that voice anywhere.

Louis’ blood began to boil, but he wasn’t sure whether he was more angry at the girl who broke Harry’s heart or the fact the idiot had been looking for her this whole time.  “What’s your point?”

“Seriously?  I- she’s here.  She’s still here.  Like, literally an hour away.”  Louis was still looking at him incredulously, and he knew it sounded crazy because she left him, but Harry wasn’t sure he was ready to give up on them.  Not yet.  “Maybe she can give me some answers.  Maybe… maybe we can work this out.”

Louis sighed.  “We’ve been through this.  You can’t- you have to let her go.”

“But I love her.  Maybe she made a mistake and- I still love her, so much.  I just… I need to know why.”  And maybe, if he knew why, he could also figure out how to make it right.

Louis pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.  He really didn’t want to have to do this, but Harry was gracious to a fault and probably all Mia would have to do was bat her innocent doe eyes at him and he would take her back in an instant.  He needed to hear the truth.

“I know why,” Louis confessed.

“You- what?”

“I know why she left.  I know you think she hung the moon, Haz, but she… she wasn’t a good person.”

“I don’t understand.”  Mia had been the best person he’d ever known – made him a better person for it, in fact.

Louis saw the defensive wall start to go up, so he had to make his point swift and painful, before Harry could shut him out.  “She lied to you.  She was sleeping around behind your back.”

“No.  She- she wouldn’t do that.”  What Louis was saying went against everything Harry knew deep down in his soul to be true.

“She did do that.  And when I called her out on it, instead of owning up to it she ran away like the fucking pathetic coward she is.”

Harry should have been focused on the whole ‘his girlfriend supposedly cheated on him’ thing, but his mind rejected that claim and instead focused on another detail of Louis’ argument.  “What do you mean you called her out on it?”

“I _mean_ , I saw her and another guy come out of a dark room with sex hair and a guilty expression and told her that if she didn’t tell you about it then I would.”

Harry paused, waiting for him to continue, but Louis just continued to stare at him expectantly.  “That’s it?” he finally asked.

Louis balked – surely Harry had lost his mind.  “That’s _it_?  What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

“You see two people leave a room together and you just assume they were hooking up?” 

Technically they hadn’t even left the room together, but Louis didn’t want to give Harry any more ammo against what he knew to be true.  “I know what I saw.”

“That sounds like some tabloid bullshit to me.”

“But she left!  Why would she have left if she didn’t do anything wrong?”  Louis had seen enough cop shows to know that innocent people don’t run.

“Did it ever occur to you that my best friend accusing my girlfriend of having an affair and then threatening to tell me about it, even with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, might have been enough to drive her away?”

At the time, Louis had been so certain.  He thought… well, he thought she had confessed it to him when they were alone in the car.  But now that he was thinking about it, she’d never actually said the words.  Fuck, could he have gotten it wrong?   “I’m- I’m sorry.  I thought… I thought I was protecting you.”

If the situation had been reversed, Louis would have been livid.  But because it was Harry, he was just… hurt.  By the one person he thought would never hurt him.

“I’m not sixteen anymore, Lou.  I don’t need you to protect me.”  Harry spun around and walked right back out the way he’d come in, storming by the slightly hungover forms of Liam and Niall dragging themselves into the studio.

Louis only hoped that Harry was right.

It was easy enough for _the_ Harry Styles to sweet-talk his way through the doors of a small-town radio station.  He dropped the name of the writer he was looking for to the receptionist – claiming to be a fan of her work and looking to potentially have her write a piece about the band – and was informed that he was in luck.  She usually worked from home, but had to come into the studio today to fill in for one of the hosts that had called in sick to their popular afternoon show.

Harry waited outside the sound booth for the hour to be up – not patiently, per se, but contentedly.  Focused on her work, Mia didn’t even notice that anyone had come in to watch behind the glass partition.  But watch he did.  He watched as her nose crinkled up when she laughed.  He watched as she continuously tucked behind her ear the one stray strand of hair that was always inexplicably shorter than the rest.  He watched as she took notes on the music that was being played, no doubt chronicling ideas for future articles.

As soon as the show ended, the man who was presumably Mia’s boss ushered Harry into a small room that he assumed was her office.  “She’ll be in in a moment,” he assured Harry, holding out his hands and gesturing for him to sit down.

But Harry didn’t much feel like sitting down.  He didn’t know quite how he felt – anxious, angry, maybe even a little excited – but everything he thought he’d feel upon seeing Mia again evaporated as soon as she walked into the room.

Seeing her again was like taking that first deep breath after almost drowning.  There was pain, certainly, but also relief.  He was alive again, and it was her presence that was filling his lungs.

Suddenly he didn’t care that she left, what she did – if anything.  He just missed her.  And perhaps it was just that he hadn’t seen her in far too long, but Harry was convinced that Mia had never looked more beautiful.

Mia had known that if she didn’t want to get fired on the spot, she could not refuse the opportunity to have exclusive access to one of the biggest pop groups on the planet.  So when her producer told her that Harry Styles was waiting in her office, she thought she’d prepared herself well enough to see him again.

She’d been wrong.

He was everything she lost.  Everything she wanted, and everything she could never have.  And one look from him – his sweet, trusting, sparkling eyes boring into hers – caused a sob to erupt from her chest and her knees nearly buckled. 

“Hey, easy now.”  Harry began to reach out his hands to steady her, but she quickly slapped them away.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned, righting herself but still leaning against the wall for support.  Her heart knew that Harry would never hurt her, but her brain tended to no longer distinguish between men when it came to their capacity to dominate her smaller, weaker form.  “Why are you here?  And don’t tell me it’s for an interview.”

He tried not to let the sting of rejection show, and instead turned on the charm.  “Am I that predictable?” he asked with a soft smirk.

“What do you want, Harry?  Uhm… Mr. Styles,” she corrected.

Harry wrinkled his nose at the forced formality.  “I thought that would be obvious – I want to know what happened.  I want to know why you left.”

Mia looked down at her feet as they kicked nervously at the carpet.  “I thought Louis would have told you by now.”

Harry hummed.  “He told me his side of the story.  Now I want to hear your side.”

Mia threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, still not looking him in the eye.  “There are no sides.  It happened, I left.”

“What happened?” Harry coaxed, stepping closer into her space so that she was basically trapped against the wall.  Being this close to her was clouding his brain, and without thinking he began to trace his fingertips up her thigh.  It was an intimate gesture he’d done a thousand times before, but this time it had her sobbing and whimpering pitiful pleas for him to stop.  “I’m sorry,” he said, backing away to give them both some space.  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Mia had her eyes squeezed shut and slid slowly down the wall until her butt landed on the floor.  She pulled her knees up and rested her elbows on her thighs, crying quietly into her palms.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I didn’t- I’m sorry.”

Harry knelt down to her level and waited for her to stop shaking before trying again to get some answers.  “Sorry for what?”

She shook her head and gave him a pleading look.  “You know.”

A sinking feeling began in Harry’s chest, but he couldn’t quite let go of the anchor just yet.  “I need you to say the words, love.”  Otherwise he wouldn’t believe it.

Friends and family had asked when she’d shown up on their doorsteps pregnant and very much alone.  But they never pressed for an explanation and she never offered one.  Of anyone, Harry deserved the truth, and Mia had been too afraid, too shocked and panicked to give it to him before. 

But… she had never been able to actually voice aloud what had happened to her.  So instead of saying anything, she rose to mirror Harry’s position on his knees, reaching out to take his hand and guide it toward the small bump that was hidden beneath her oversized sweater.

His fingers curled around the swell experimentally, like he didn’t quite know what it meant.  Then it clicked, and for a second – just a split second – he was convinced that the baby was his.  That by some unlikely and miraculous circumstance they had fooled around just enough to allow this to happen.  It was the happiest split second of his life, until he looked up to see the guilt etched deeply into the lines of Mia’s face, could practically feel the waves of heartbreak and shame radiating from her defensive posture.

“Who?” he asked gently, not entirely sure he wanted to know.  “Never mind.”  He didn’t want to know.

“I’m sorry.”

Harry didn’t think his heart could break into any more pieces, but he was wrong.  This new revelation left him shattered and aching in places he didn’t even know existed.  “I, uh, don’t think we’ll be moving forward with the interview,” he stated, rising to his feet and smoothing out the front of his shirt.  “Take care, Ms. Parker.”

And with that, Harry Styles walked right back out of her life again.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Harry went right back to the studio later that evening to continue work on their album.  Louis was the only one who knew where he’d been, but didn’t dare bring it up while there were so many listening ears around.

For days, Harry just put his head down and waited for the inevitable weight of grief to settle into his bones. 

But it never came. 

He talked and wrote and ate and sang, but it all felt hollow. 

Meaningless.

And Harry didn’t want to live that way.

So he told Louis that he was going back to see Mia again – which Louis rightly told him was insane and downright masochistic.  But though that moment had been one of the most painful of his life, it was the last time he’d felt anything at all.

Harry would take pain over numbness.

Pain, at least, meant that he was still alive.

Which was how he found himself knocking on the door of a little row house in the small town in which Mia had chosen to hide herself away– the address obtained by his assistant through such channels that, for legal reasons, he didn’t dare ask too many details about.

When Mia opened the door, her expression was so comically exaggerated that it was enough to cause the corner of Harry’s mouth to quirk up in the beginnings of a smile.  She fishmouthed for several seconds, but no actual words were forthcoming.

So Harry decided to speak first.

“Would you like to have lunch?” he asked politely, almost shyly.  “With me?”


	4. Temporary Fix

This was a bad idea.

Mia knew it was a bad idea.

And yet she still agreed to go to lunch with the boy she’d never intended to see again.

The rational part of her brain had very rational reasons for accepting – it was just lunch and he said wanted to talk about work and, more than anything else, she owed him closure.  But every other part of her mind, body, and soul just desperately missed Harry and would do anything for a few more hours with him.

They took separate cars to the small Italian bistro, but that only allowed all the possible avenues their conversation could take to plague her thoughts.  There were many, and none of them seemed particularly easy or pleasant.

She expected the hard questions to begin as soon as they sat down.  When they didn’t come immediately, she then expected them after they’d ordered their food.  But they were each half way through their dishes now, and they were still engaging in polite conversation about writing and music and family.  Still, there was a strong undercurrent of everything that wasn’t being said, and she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 “How’s Anne?” Mia asked as she picked at the ravioli on her plate.  It had been difficult to swallow the few bites she’d managed to get down, and she wasn’t sure whether the unease and nausea were the result of anxiety or the pregnancy.

“She’s alright.  Spending a lot of time with friends lately, but I know she misses him.”

The one-year anniversary since Harry’s stepfather died had passed and Mia felt all the more guilty for not being there for either Anne or Harry during that time.  “Gemma?”

Harry rolled his eyes with brotherly affection.  “Oh, you know.  The usual.  Got snatched up by some all female owned and operated startup that will probably be taking over the world before too long.”  He noted the way Mia was pushing food around with her fork without actually taking a bite.  “Something wrong with the food?”

She shook her head, but gave up pretending to use the fork.  “Stomach’s a little unsettled, s’all.”

“Anything I can do to help?  Anything you need?  A ginger ale, maybe?”

“You don’t need to do that,” she murmured, referring to more than just his offer to get her something to drink.  She’d given up the privilege of allowing Harry to care for or about her needs the second she’d chosen to leave him.

“Do what?”  She took a sip of water and adjusted the napkin in her lap, which he correctly took to mean that she wasn’t going to answer his question.  “What about you?  Talked to your mum lately?”  He knew she wasn’t Mia’s favorite person, but the part of him that still cared for her needed to know that she had someone to help support her.

“No, she’s- we haven’t spoken.”  Well, not since Mia had told her about the pregnancy – her mother, who had also been a young, single parent – told Mia that she’d have to figure this out for herself because she’d paid her dues and refused to suffer the consequences of the same mistake twice.

There was sadness in her voice, maybe a little longing, and Harry hated the fact that he couldn’t just reach over and wrap her in his arms.  “Are you… I mean, are you okay?”

Mia’s heart warred with her head in that moment.  No, she was not okay… but it was also not Harry’s job to fix it.  He was too good a person – if he knew the truth, he would feel obligated to stay with her.  But it was her own weakness and naiveté that had resulted in her pregnancy, and it was her own decision to keep the baby.  She refused to guilt him into a future he had not chosen for himself.

As if confirming her thoughts, an odd fluttering movement like popcorn popping came from inside her stomach.  There had been some questionable sensations before, but nothing she could definitely claim as a kick.  But this was definitely her child moving inside her – it was bittersweet and unexpected and had tears streaming down her face before she could rein them in.

 “What is it?” Harry asked, ignoring the polite distance he’d been keeping between them and rushing to kneel by her chair.  “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.  I’m- nothing.  It’s okay.”  Well not okay, but as she expected it to be.  For just a little while, things had almost felt normal.  But the suddenly very real reminder of why this was wrong, why they couldn’t and shouldn’t be together, had her scrambling to get up from the table.  “We can’t do this.  I’m sorry.”

Harry took one of her hands and tugged her back down in her seat.  “What do you mean?  What happened?”  She wasn’t speaking, but her other hand was splayed across her stomach and he began to speculate.  “Do you feel ill?  Are you in pain?”  He reached up to brush away the moisture on her cheeks with the pad of his thumb.  “Please talk to me.”

“This was a mistake.”  Mia felt so broken and damaged.  And despite the inexplicably kind way Harry was treating her, she suspected that she had broken him too.  “I’m sorry.”

“Well I’m not.”  Harry stood to his feet and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.  “I tried to respect your privacy.  I tried not to ask… fuck, _anything_ I really wanted to know because for now it’s enough just to be with you.  Because what we have is special.  Or… had.”  Once again he dragged a hand through his mess of curls and tried not to sound as exasperated as he felt.  “It’s just… you were my whole world, and now- now you won’t even speak to me.”  When she continued to stay silent, he got back down on his knees in a gesture that both looked and sounded very much like begging.  “Please, I just- what’s going on with you, Mia?”

She knew he was asking about more than just this present moment, but she had no answers for anything else.  “Baby’s kicking,” she finally managed to whisper. 

That… was not what Harry was expecting.  And he did not quite know how to feel about it.  His first instinct was happiness, but that emotion was quickly clouded by confusion and hurt and just a pinch of anger.  “That’s, uhm…”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” she reiterated, and this time he allowed her to get to her feet.

“No, its… no.”  Ignoring the ache in his own heart, Harry decided he could be casual about this.  Mostly, though, he just wasn’t ready for her to leave yet.  “If that’s what’s on your mind, we can talk about it.”

“Haz—“

“Please don’t- don’t walk out on me again.”  The words were a low blow, but they had their intended effect – she stilled, purse in hand and body already angled toward the door.  There was pain leeching through her now guarded expression when she turned back to him, and Harry attempted to bring some levity to the conversation.  “So, uhm, what does it feel like?  Being kicked from the inside out?” 

Mia studied him for a moment, assessing the sincerity of the question, before giving a light shrug and trying to formulate an analogy that would suffice.  “Guess maybe something like bubbles or pop rocks going off in your tummy?  Why are you doing this?”

Her description was adorable and his hand twitched in longing to reach out and try to feel for himself.  “When are you due?” he asked instead of answering her question.

“Summer.”

Harry squinted at the clipped, vague answer and walked a circle around her to get a better look at the extent of her bump.  “July?” he guessed.  No response.  “June?”  Mia rolled her eyes in exasperation and Harry pointed at her excitedly.  “June – definitely June.  I can read you like a book.”  Mia suddenly very much wanted to get out of this conversation, but another question was already on Harry’s tongue.  “Do you know what you’re having?”

“No,” she bit out, hoping to put an end to whatever this little game was.

“I think you do.”  Her jaw clenched and he smiled victoriously.  “You do!  Of course you do, you hate surprises,” he muttered to himself as if the answer was obvious and he hated to have expended another question on it.

The offhand remark was so casual, but it had Mia covering her mouth and stifling a sob.  He knew her so well – he knew that wedding fail videos made her laugh so hard she cried; he knew that she bit her lip to hide a smile when she had a good poker hand; he knew that music was her life but she couldn’t sing or play an instrument for shit. 

And, if Mia stayed in that spot for 30 seconds longer, he would know exactly what to say to get her to stay forever.

 “We can’t—“  She took a shuddering breath and exhaled slowly.  “I can’t do this.”  But before she turned, determined to walk out of Harry’s life forever, she gave him a soft smile and said, “And… girl.  It’s… I’m having a girl.”

It took all of 48 hours for Mia to break her promise to herself.  Well, 48 hours, some papped photos of them having lunch together, and multiple quickly spreading rumors about their sudden reconnection.

The boys were in the middle of a recording session when Harry’s phone buzzed and the name of the last person he ever expected to be calling appeared on screen.

“Sorry, I gotta…”  Harry held up his phone and trailed off without much explanation.

“Just make it quick, yeah?” Niall called to his retreating form.

Once out of the room, Harry answered the incoming call.  “Mia?”  There was concern lacing his tone – her desires regarding their non-relationship had been obvious, so his first thought was that something was very wrong.

_“We were photographed.”_

His phone buzzed with a text message from her that linked to an article, which contained several poor quality images from the inside of the café where they’d had lunch.  “It’s hardly a sex tape – let them speculate.”  In his experience, denying rumors tended to just add fuel to the fire.

_“There’s more.”_   She sent several other links, each story getting progressively more outlandish.

Harry sighed – was she really that against being seen with him?  “This really isn’t a big deal.”  Every time he was seen with anyone, man or woman, people would always jump straight to assuming they were lovers.  “It’ll pass.”

_“Do you remember what happened when we first started dating?  I had to delete my social media, change my phone number, and add a deadbolt to my apartment door.”_   Although Harry did recall the initial crash course on celebrity relationships, he mostly just remembered the feeling of being hopelessly and delightfully smitten.  _“And I can’t- I just… don’t particularly want people to start digging into my private life at the moment.”_

He wanted to be angry about the request – about _why_ she didn’t want anyone poking around – but it was his own fault that she had been thrust into the spotlight in the first place, and now again for a second time.  Plus, he understood the longing for anonymity and privacy – to just live out your life without the entire world having an opinion about everything you say, every choice you make.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

After a couple hours of distracted and subpar work in the studio, Harry had come up with a solution that just might quell the media storm that was brewing and took it straight to their manager’s office.

“Harry.  Aren’t you supposed to be recording right now?” Alex asked without looking up from the newspaper on his desk.

“I need you to set up an interview.”  The best way to curb the speculation was to present another narrative – and then back it up with evidence.  Harry had already used the excuse of wanting to utilize Mia for an interview when he’d hustled his way into her office – it would be easy enough to add legitimacy to the ruse.

“With whom?”

“Kalm Radio.”

At this, Alex quirked an eyebrow.  “Would this, by chance, have something to do with the photographs of you on an intimate lunch date recently?”

Harry’s skin prickled at the implication in his tone.  “Does it matter?  You’re always talking about the value of promotion, and she has an audience.”

“And because you are consistently absent from your responsibilities as a musician, there is, as of this moment, nothing yet to promote.”

That was a bullshit argument – artists promoted singles and anticipated albums and performed from their archives all the time to stay relevant.  Besides, it was _almost_ done.  “Most of the album is written, and we can record anytime.”

“You can, but you do not.”  Alex waved him off and went back to burying his nose in whatever research he had been doing.  “Show me some real dedication to your work and then we’ll talk.”

It was another couple weeks of Harry and the boys busting their asses before there was enough progress for Alex to agree to set up the interview.  Harry would have liked to believe it was simply because he’d asked him to, but he suspected that the real reason Alex had arranged this – and was even going to the effort of hyping it up to other media outlets – was that he’d discovered Mia’s niche but highly dedicated fanbase.  People had found her work because of her high-profile relationship with Harry, but they’d stayed after their breakup because she was genuinely a talented writer. 

Slowly, the articles suggesting a more salacious encounter were replaced with excitement about the intimacy of a piece about the boys written by someone from their inner circle (formerly, anyway).  Though Mia was once again suddenly the center of attention, at least this time it was for work-related reasons. 

Mostly.

So when Mia arrived at the label’s corporate offices, there was a lot of pressure for her to get this right – to capture thoughts and observations with objective journalism softened with a hint of warm familiarity.  Judging by the atmosphere in the room as she walked in, that last part was going to prove a little difficult.

The boys hadn’t exactly been thrilled to learn that they were being pulled away from their time in the studio to give a candid, in-depth look at their most honest and vulnerable album yet to the girl that had abandoned them and broken their friend’s heart.  But then she sat down across from them, a now more apparent bump tugging at the hem of her shirt, and… they needed to have a chat.

After dragging Harry into another room, there was a beat before Niall finally voiced what was already on everyone’s mind.  “What the hell?”

“Did you know about this?”  Louis asked, to which Harry nodded.  “It’s not yours, is it?”  He was fairly certain of the answer, but Harry confirmed it with a shake of his head.  “Shit.”

“Jesus, mate.”  Niall looked back at the closed door.  “So, I’ll say it again – what the hell?”

“This has nothing to do with that.”  It had seemed like a win-win scenario in Harry’s mind, but seeing it played out now… yeah, he hadn’t really considered that the other boys might be pissed.  “This is strictly promo for the album.” 

“Yeah, which we’ve not even finished yet.  Which we should be working on now instead of sittin’ down to spill the tea with your fucking ex.”  More than anything, Louis was hurt that his best friend had found out that his former girlfriend, whom he was still pining after, got knocked up by someone else and hadn’t even bothered to talk to him about it.

“Why would Alex even set this up?”  Liam asked, his rational, analytical tone a stark contrast to Louis’ emotional outbursts.

“Because I asked him to,” Harry replied simply.

“You—“ Louis began, but Harry cut him off.

“I went to see her a couple weeks ago.  We were seen having lunch, and now instead of people thinking we are back together, they will believe that we were discussing our upcoming collaboration.”

“They might believe it, but I sure as hell don’t.”  Though Harry hadn’t voiced his inmost thoughts, Louis could tell that he was looking for any excuse to pull Mia back into his life.  “You said she never wanted to see you again, and now that a release date’s been set she rings you up asking for an exclusive?  She’s fucking using you – all of us!”

“This was _my_ idea, alright?  She didn’t want to see me because she didn’t want to be part of the goddamn circus that is our lives.  Now, you don’t have to be friends – you don’t even have to like her – but this is happening.  So stop throwing a tantrum, and go out there and do your fucking job.”  With that, Harry stormed back out the door, not bothering to look back to see if the others were following.

When they all reconvened, Harry was the only one attempting to pretend the circumstances were normal – he answered Mia’s thoughtfully crafted questions slowly but thoroughly, peppering in a few personal anecdotes about their writing and recording process.  Niall’s wit was a little more biting than usual, and Liam was cordial but cold.  Louis, however, was the one really making Mia nervous.

Louis had been thoroughly silent throughout the interview, contributing only the occasional scoff or sidelong glare.  It was only when she asked if they’d yet chosen a single to be released ahead of the album that he finally perked up.

“Actually, yeah.  Harry’s written an absolute smash – the best songs come from personal experience, you know.  Wanna hear a sneak peek?”

Mia had a bad feeling about the too innocent smile plastered on his face.

“We’re not supposed to—“ Harry began before Louis cut him off again.

“It’s called Fragile.  Now you’ll have to use your imagination, but just picture some really sad instrumentation around this – you know, all strings and piano.  The kind that really breaks your heart.”

Now even Liam, who had been trying to remain a neutral party in the situation, stepped in.  “Maybe this isn’t the best idea, Tommo.”

“It’s gonna be all over the fucking radio soon anyway, Li.  Might as well hear it right from the horse’s mouth.  Go on, Harry, sing her a few bars.”  When Harry’s mouth stayed firmly shut, Louis took to singing the chorus.  “Delicate and sweet – draw me in, watch me bleed.”  He looked around expectantly, but none of the other boys seemed eager to join in.  “Got it all wrong – thought you were fragile like a flower, but you’re fragile like a bomb.”

“That’s enough,” Harry finally barked, stepping directly into Louis’ line of sight, as if shielding Mia from his view would protect her from the damage those words were sure to inflict.

“Why?  It’s the truth, right?  Fuck, why do you keep going back to her?”

“I seem to recall you and Eleanor having had your fair share of ups and downs,” Harry fired back.

“Maybe we should all take a minute to calm down,” Liam suggested.

And Louis promptly ignored that suggestion.  “That was different.”

“Why?” Harry challenged.  “Because you were the one who cheated in that relationship?”

“I didn’t- we weren’t—“  For the first time since beginning this argument, Louis stumbled over his words.

“Just have a go at each other and be done with it already,” Niall muttered, which earned a ‘not helping’ glare from Liam.

Mia had been trying to stay out of things, but there was only so much she could take of being attacked by those she once considered brothers and then defended by the man that should be leading their charge.  She had shattered her own relationship with Harry, and now her mere presence was destroying his relationship with his best friends as well.

She couldn’t do this anymore.

As quickly and quietly as possible, Mia gathered her things and scurried out of the room.

It took a few wrong turns and a bit of backtracking, but eventually she found a way out of the building.  Her car, however, happened to be parked on the other side of the monstrous high-rise to the exit she’d found.

Rather than taking the shortest route, which would require risking going back inside, she skirted along the perimeter… and ran smack dab into the very person she’d been trying to escape.

“Let me go, Harry.”

“Please stay.  That song – I wrote it just after you’d gone.  And the lyrics, I didn’t mean—“

Mia shook her head.  “It’s okay, I understand.”  Their whole world was blown up the night she left – she could hardly blame a musician for processing his emotions through his music.  “But you were right.  We should have just let the rumors run their course.  This was a mistake.”

“No—“

“Why did they even agree to this?  God, they _hate_ me.”  She could feel it radiating off each of the boys – Louis especially – and that was almost the hardest part of this whole situation.  This band had been like a family to her.  More of a family than the endless string of men and step-siblings that had paraded in and out of her life as a child, anyway.

Tears had started running down her cheeks and Harry took a step closer, so close their toes were practically touching.  “They don’t hate you, they- they were just surprised.  My fault.”  She cocked her head and Harry tugged at his bottom lip nervously.  “I, uhm, sort of forgot to mention that you were pregnant.”

“Forgot,” Mia echoed in a disbelieving whisper.

“It shouldn’t have mattered – it’s none of their business.  _We_ are none of their business.”

Mia looked up at him then, a sadness too profound for her young life etched into the creases between her brows.  “There is no ‘we’, Haz.”

“But there could be!”  Harry blew out a puff of air and pivoted, taking a couple steps away only to return to his previous position.  “I honestly don’t know how we ended up here, but you are still the only person that makes me feel anything worth writing about.”  He ran a nervous hand through his hair to push back the curls that had fallen across his face.  “And I think that’s worth trying to get back what we had.”  She didn’t say anything, but Harry could see the longing in her eyes.  “But we can’t move forward if you keep running.  We need to be able to talk about what happened.”  He reached a hand out slowly, so as not to spook her, and molded it around the curve of her stomach.  “We need to be able to talk about _this_.”

As if voicing the thoughts that Mia herself was too afraid to say, the child beneath Harry’s palm directed a vigorous kick toward the exterior wall of her abdomen and his eyes widened, filled with emotions so layered and complex that he was pretty sure there weren’t even names for them all. 

He was about to say something when her gaze flicked to something behind him and she backed quickly away from his touch. 

“Our business here is done,” she said in a formal tone that belied the moisture still glistening on her cheeks. 

Harry looked back over his shoulder and saw an intimidating and semi-irritated looking entourage charging toward them that included Liam, Alex, and several members of security.  “When can I see you again?” he asked, turning back to her.

“The interview is over now; we shouldn’t _have_ to see each other again.”  Mia pulled her jacket tighter around her and crossed her arms in as defensive gesture before turning and walking in the direction of her car.  She used a sleeve to swipe at the wetness beneath her eyes and nose and caught Harry’s helpless look at her retreat.

She was leaving him.

Again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, picking up the pace and disappearing around the corner.

“What the hell happened in there?” Alex fumed when he reached Harry, standing to his full height and effectively looming over him.  “I thought this little stunt was supposed eliminate the drama, not create more of it.”

Harry ground his teeth together to keep from thoughtlessly lashing out at the man that basically owned their professional asses.  “It’s over now.”  Mia had been very clear about that.  “Won’t happen again.”

“Good.  Because I seem to have four very pissed of clients at the moment, and this band cannot survive the loss of another member.”

As much as Harry hated to admit it, Alex was right.  The boys needed each other now more than ever, and Harry had been the one driving a wedge between them.  And he couldn’t continue to do so in a desperate attempt to recapture a future that had somehow slipped right through his fingertips.

He needed to let it go.

He needed to let _her_ go.

“No more drama,” Harry agreed, shoulders slumping in resignation.  Liam reached out to give his arm a sympathetic squeeze before they all started back into the building.

Sidewalk now empty, the photographer that had been hiding in the bushes across the street packed up his telephoto lens and scurried back to his crappy, busted up car.  There, he scrolled through the dozens of images he’d just captured.  Most were of little value – celebrities conversing with members of their own teams were boring, and even the situation with the girl was old news now.

But then his eyes landed one – the camera having detected something his eyes, at the time, had not – where the angles and the wind and the timing had all come together just right and…

Tomorrow, he was getting _paid._


	5. Through The Dark

_Harry’s Baby Mama Drama._

_Daddy Direction?_

_Harry Styles Is Going To Be A Father._

The headlines came pouring in over the next several days.  And that photo.  That damn photo was everywhere – Harry and Mia alone together on the street with his hand splayed across her obviously protruding stomach.  Security had been careful to sweep the main entrance to the building for lingering paps, but Mia had gone out a side exit and there really shouldn’t have been anyone around.

Though Mia hadn’t asked Harry to try and tame the rumors again, he made regular visits to their media team to see what the damage was.  And it appeared people were almost as interested in Mia’s daily activities as they were in his own.  He felt so helpless seeing all the pictures of her at work or picking up groceries that had started popping up. 

He didn’t want to make things worse for her by trying to see her again or even commenting on the matter, but then he saw a video of Mia being swarmed leaving a store that exclusively sold baby items.  The fear and anxiety were obvious on her face as she plunged through the crowd to try and get to her car, but the people were too numerous and too insistent and somehow she ended up on the ground and Harry ended up in their manager’s office.

“Fix this,” he demanded, slamming down on Alex’s desk one of the many gossip magazines that his face was plastered all over.

Alex raised an eyebrow.  “I believe you’d need a licensed medical professional to take care of _this_ little problem,” he mused, tapping on the picture right over Mia’s swollen tummy.

Harry wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not, but found the comment distasteful either way.  “You know what I mean.”

“You sought her out.  You staged this whole interview, despite my warnings.”

“I know that,” Harry snapped in uncharacteristic anger.  Fuck, he _knew_ this was his fault.  “But she doesn’t deserve this.”

Alex heaved a put-upon sigh.  “What would you have me do?  Buy her off?  Set her up with a nice house and hefty child support payments in exchange for a DNA test and an ironclad NDA to protect your anonymity?”

“What?”  It took a moment for Harry to process what he was suggesting.  “No.  I mean, it’s not- the child’s not mine.”  For the first time Harry could remember, Alex seemed flustered for a moment, almost angry, and assumed it was because the manager didn’t understand why Harry was still going to such lengths to protect her.  His bandmates seemed to suffer from the same affliction.  “I’m just trying to make this right.”

“You’re certain you’re not the father?”  Harry confirmed with a nod and Alex shook his head, eyes hardening back to their usual cold indifference.  “You should have said so in the first place.  I’ll start working with publicity to get a statement together right away.”

Although Harry was baffled by the abrupt change in his favor, he’d take the win.  “As soon as possible,” he said, the image of Mia’s small frame curled up on the sidewalk amidst the mob still fresh in his mind.

Alex was true to his word, and several days later the articles started coming out with quotes from ‘a source close to the singer’.  It could have been anyone, but judging by the particularly vicious claims being made by the insider, he was fairly certain it was Alex himself who had leaked the information.

Before, Harry had been speculated as being the father of Mia’s baby, which made it look like he’d broken up with her after finding out about the pregnancy.  Now that it was confirmed that he was not the father, that she had slept with someone else while they were still together, combined with their recent sightings together and the implication that she was using his fame to stay relevant, everyone seemed outraged on his behalf.

Harry, however, was well enough outraged on his own damn behalf.

Which was how he found himself once again storming into their manager’s presence.  He was in one of the large meeting rooms with several other executives listening to their nearly finalized cut of the album, but Harry was beyond caring – let them all see how petty and cruel their hotshot employee was.

“How could you do this?” he asked, sending the pages of vitriol about Mia he’d had printed out from online sources scattering around the room.  “I know it was you.”

Alex got up calmly, throwing a playfully exasperated eye roll to his coworkers, as if it was an inside joke how sensitive and temperamental the artistic types could be.  “Of course it was me.  You asked me to handle the situation, and I did,” he reminded patiently.

“You threw her under the bus.”

“I don’t believe any of my statements were inaccurate.  As far as I know, from what you yourself have told me, she cheated on you, became pregnant with another man’s child, and has now somehow managed to leverage your past to further her career.”  Alex raised his eyebrows, just daring Harry to contradict him.

Harry was getting frustrated, but the exact way that Alex had phrased his point was technically correct – the man was like a politician when it came to wielding his words like a weapon.  “It’s not that simple.  She’s not some evil mastermind.  She’s—“

“ _She_ is not my client,” Alex interrupted, growing impatient with being chastised in front of his peers.  “Many bands have broken up due to the careless actions of a woman, and One Direction is not immune.  Don’t think I didn’t notice their behavior during the interview.”

“Interview?” one of the men behind them asked, rising from his seat with a look of concern.  “This album is going to be released next month.  Hell, the boys are leaving in a week to begin the American leg of their promotional tour – are we going to have an issue here?”

A flicker of rage crossed Alex’s face before it settled back into its practiced indifference and he turned to address his boss – he did not like to be thought of as incompetent.  “Of course not, sir.  It’s been handled.”

“What do you mean it’s been handled?”

Harry had asked the question, but Alex addressed the executive behind him instead – a testament to whose opinion he valued more.  “There will be no article.  There is bad blood here – anything written would have been petty and spiteful – and I made certain that Mia Harding would no longer be able to damage anyone else’s career with her lies.”

***

“Fired?” Mia asked incredulously, following her boss around as he continued avoiding her stare, trying instead to busy himself with adjusting levels for the current broadcast.  “What do you mean I’m fired?”

“I’m sorry, Mia.  Truly.  I had no choice,” Tom said, slightly exasperated.

It felt like something very heavy was sitting on Mia’s chest and she dropped into the chair next to Tom.  “I don’t understand.  What did I do?” she whispered, slightly breathless.  “What did I do wrong?”

Finally, Tom stilled and actually looked at her.  He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair – he really shouldn’t be telling her this, but she was a good kid and the big bad music industry had definitely conspired to screw her over.  “We got a call yesterday from UMG.  They claim that you behaved inappropriately at the interview last week and demanded your resignation.” 

Mia’s eyes were wide and innocent as she bit back tears.  That had been one of the most difficult things she’d done in her life, trying to walk into that building with her head held high knowing that everyone inside despised her.  Was it because she’d left early – run away like a coward?  Or did they really hate her that much and this was just the last nail in the coffin?  “But I didn’t.  I never—“

“They’re a large corporation, Mia.  They have a lot of clout and a lot of lawyers, and if I make a fuss about this then it’ll cost us _both_ our jobs.”  He’d already been told as much – it was much easier to let go of one still brand new employee than to engage in an ugly and highly public legal battle that they were sure to lose.

“Please.  I can’t afford to lose my job – my insurance.”  She put a hand to her stomach and whispered a silent apology to her child for screwing its life up so badly already.  “Please don’t do this.”

Tom reached out and put a hand to her forearm in a comforting gesture.  “I don’t have a choice.”  In an attempt to maintain some dignity, Mia tried to rein in the sobs threatening to course through her, but her body still shook and tears stung behind her eyes.  “For what it’s worth, I think they’re full of shit.”

She nodded – clearly his mind was already made up – and jumped up from the chair, scurrying out of the room.  Once in the privacy of her office – or, former office – she allowed herself to break down, to freak out about the future to which she’d condemned herself.

There were frantic little kicks jutting out from the wall of her abdomen and she tried to steady her breathing and temper the burst of adrenaline.  “It’s okay,” she soothed, wrapping her arms around her middle.  “You deserve better.”  In that moment, she didn’t know whether she was talking to her child or herself.

Mia should have been making plans – figuring out the practical details of where she was going to live or how she was going to work, but all she could think about was the awful things people were saying about her.  Although she didn’t believe that Harry himself had said those things – he was too kind, even when people, like her, didn’t deserve it – they were true nonetheless.

She cleaned out her room at the station.  It held her favorite vinyl records, some framed cutouts of her first printed pieces, and the files of the articles she was currently working on.  She took down the modern art paintings on the wall and almost smiled – she and Harry had had endless disagreements about their legitimacy; he could find no meaning in their abstract lines, while she argued that that was exactly the point because they could mean absolutely anything.

Having lost the rare steady job in the only field she loved, Mia worked through packing up her small townhome with the same care and precision.  It had cost her to break the lease early, but less so than continuing a monthly rent she could no longer afford.  Harry had attempted to contact her several times in the wake of her dismissal – once again her private life was big news for some reason – but she couldn’t face him.  She had failed in every aspect of her personal and professional life, and she didn’t want his pity or his empathy or whatever other kindnesses he was sure to offer.

She couldn’t bear it.

So Mia shut herself away, avoiding everyone until the band left to promote the album and she could slip away into a new life without interference.  Perhaps Harry would accuse her of running away again, but she honestly didn’t understand why he was fighting so hard to keep them together in a world that seemed designed to break them apart.

And if she stayed any longer, she just might let him try.

It was another week before most of Mia’s things had been shipped and she had a flight booked to follow them.  The Florida heat and humidity would be quite a shock to her system after spending so many years in London, but it was familiar territory – one of the few places she’d lived that didn’t hold any painful memories from the past.

She’d been studiously avoiding any news about One Direction’s new album, keeping the radio turned off and scrolling through any sort of entertainment news.  But there was no avoiding the early morning news channels at the airport, and as much as she tried, she could not force herself to look away as Britain’s pride and joy performed their new hit single.

The song was familiar – words that Louis had thrown at her during their disaster of an interview – only now there were thousands of screaming fans singing along to bolster its impact.  It was catchy but intimate, the lyrics like a knife specially fashioned to carve right into Mia’s heart.  Harry looked appropriately melancholy singing about his pain, a smile only ever crossing his face when he stopped to wave at someone in the crowd.

After the song was over, the hosts began interviewing the boys.  If you could even call it that.  To Mia, it seemed like they were being interrogated. 

“Wonderful debut single, but you know I’ve gotta ask… who’s the song about, boys?  What girl was foolish enough to break your heart?”  Though they’d addressed the band as a whole, it was Harry they gave the microphone to.

“Ehm, it’s not necessarily about any one person.  It’s not even necessarily about a romantic relationship.  It’s like… sometimes one person thinks it’s one thing, and the other person thinks it’s something different.  It’s more, like, about expectations, you know?”

Harry always chose his words with such care, and Mia’s heart clenched at the way he seemed to be protecting her even now.  The interviewers, however, filled in the gaps for him.

“Well you wrote the song – a lot of fans are speculating that it’s about your relationship with Mia Harding.”

“I did write the song, yeah.  But it’s not like- I mean, music is so personal.  It’s not just about one thing – it’s about a million different things depending on who’s listening to it.”

“But to _you_ , it’s about Mia?” they pressed.  “I mean, with the break up, and the pregnancy, and the interview debacle… that’s gotta provide some good writing material.  That’s some soap opera level drama right there.”

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Harry said, though immediately regretted adding fuel to the fire.  “Mia’s a good girl; we’re on good terms.”

The interviewer looked surprised at this.  “Really?  There’s a rumor going around that the much anticipated One Direction interview was the reason she lost her job – did something happen?”

“There’s always rumors,” Louis said with an eye roll.

“So, about the album…”  Liam’s attempt to get the questions back on track seemed to fail; the interviewers were relentless.

“Harry, you’ve always been the ladies’ man, but the girl who finally got her hooks in you is the one to walk out – is there something more going on here?  Something we’re missing?”  Though she didn’t explicitly say it, there was the implication that perhaps Harry had done something wrong, something to drive her away.

Louis looked like he wanted to punch something, and Niall tried to lighten the mood and get the focus off his bandmate.  “Oi, Harry’s not the only one with girl troubles, you know.”

The interviewer smiled, out of time to badger the boys any more.  “I’m sure anyone here would be glad to help you out with that,” she said, earning an easy roar from the crowd of fans.  “Ladies and gentlemen, One Directions’ latest album will be out exactly two weeks from today.”

Mia stood staring at the commercials on the screen for several minutes after the interview had concluded.  She honestly didn’t’ know how Harry had managed to remain his usual mild-mannered self, because she was pissed the hell off.  The only thing Mia had ever wanted over these past few months was to keep Harry from getting hurt, and now that seemed to be all she was capable of doing.  She had tried avoiding him, pushing him away and accepting whatever he wanted to say about their relationship to the press.

But it wasn’t going to stop.  Their hit song was about her – about them – and the promotional campaign was just beginning.  They were going to get these questions in every single interview.  Harry was going to have to relive the pain she’d inflicted upon him again and again and he’d sit there and take it because he’d think it was the right thing to do.

Mia ran up to the desk at the terminal and begged the airport employee to change her ticket to one that would fly out the next day.  SA much as the idea made Mia sick just thinking about it, she couldn’t let Harry continue being the only one to do the right thing.  She hadn’t been strong enough to do it for herself, but she could do it for him.  She could do it for Harry.  

And her former boss owed her at least enough to help her accomplish it.

***

The boys had just finished a long day of interviews and were lounging around the hotel ballroom while their management team briefed them on the next day’s itinerary.  Most of the people in the room were reading through information packets or scrolling through their phones, but one of the members of the media team – Harry’s favorite, though he may have been partial because she had been the one to keep tabs on Mia – was listening to something through headphones.  Her eyes snapped up and locked onto Harry’s and she glanced cautiously around the room before making her way over to him.

“I think you should listen to this,” she said quietly, handing him her device.  The screen indicated that it was a live broadcast from Kalm Radio, and his heart leapt into his throat.  “It’s her.  She’s- they’re interviewing her.”

Instead of giving Harry a chance to listen in privately, Louis pulled out the cable connected to the phone so all the boys could all crowd around and hear what was being said.

_“—supposed to write an article.  What happened with that?”_

Harry sucked in a breath as he waited to hear her voice again.

_“The article was written, it just never made it to publication.  If we had the time, I would read it for you, but suffice it to say that it was glowing.  This is their most raw album yet.  It’s honest and deep, and I know it’s going to resonate with a lot of people.”_

There was true admiration in her voice, and Louis was surprised that after everything she would still praise their music – if it was him, he probably would have taken the petty route and damned all the songs to forgettable mediocrity.

_“I’ve heard that many of the songs were actually written about you by your former flame.”_

_“I don’t believe that’s for me to say,_ Tom _.”_ Harry could practically hear the grinding of her teeth in agitation, but he’d been in the business long enough to know no interviewer, even those considered friends, could resist asking about the meaning behind their popular songs.  She sighed, and her tone turned wistful.  _“But I wouldn’t blame him if they were.  I- I broke his heart and betrayed him in the worst way possible.”_

_“Which brings us to our next question…”_

Alex chose that moment to intrude on the tightly huddled group.  “What’s going on here?”  Harry attempted to turn away from him and the executive snatched the phone out of his hand.  “What is this?”

“Important,” Harry muttered, taking the phone back.  He had missed part of the conversation, and Mia was in the middle of answering whatever had been asked.

“ _—are not together.  The baby is not his.”_

 “Turn this nonsense off right now – we’ve got work to do.”  Alex again tried to tear the phone away from him, but Harry took off across the room like a kid with a piece of candy.  “I thought this matter was closed!” he called to his retreating form, even after the rest of the group ran after him.

_“But it is the reason you broke up?”_

Harry could barely breathe – this was the very thing he’d been wanting to know for months now.

_“Yes.  It’s- he didn’t know.  Harry didn’t know about the baby, but it’s why I chose to break it off.”_ There was a beat of silence where the microphone picked up a soft sob.  When Mia continued, the words were quick and wet and ran together, like she just wanted to get them out as quickly as possible.  _“I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he would have stayed.  He’s the most amazing person I know, and he would have stayed for me.  And he deserves better – a family of his own, children that are his.  Because it was my decision, and mine alone, to have the child of a man who-“_ she took a shuddering breath, _“a man who raped me.”_

There may have been more questions, but Harry didn’t hear them over the pounding in his ears.  The word kept rattling around in his head like a knife in his skull and he couldn’t move he was shaking so bad. 

They were all stunned, but it was Louis who the first to react.  “You bastard!” he yelled, punching Alex square in the face.  “Fucking hell!”  He shook his hand out as fiery pain shot up his arm – Jesus, did the man work out his jaw too?

“A little help here?” Alex said, gesturing to security as Louis tried to lunge at him again.

“What the hell, Lou,” Niall said, watching him struggle against the powerful arms of their personal security.

“It was him.  It was this fucking asshole I saw leave the room with her at that fucking launch party.”  Turning to Alex, he added, “From day one, I knew you were a fucking snake!”

“Launch party,” Harry repeated, his stomach twisting as he remembered that night – how Mia had stumbled out sick and crying, how distraught and withdrawn and depressed she’d been afterward – and now it all made sense.  He should have pressed her, should have forced her to tell him the truth.  If she had, he could have…   But he couldn’t have really helped, could he?

“Alex assaulted Mia?” Liam asked, always direct and to-the-point.  The implications of the accusation weighed heavily on them all, their shame of the judgment and condemnation they had directed toward Mia washing back over them in a tidal wave of guilt.

“Is that what she’s saying now?”  Alex laughed, actually _laughed_ , and Harry very nearly struck at the as-yet unmarred side of his face.  “She wanted it – walked into that room with me of her own free will.  And it couldn’t have been the first time, because if that kid was mine, as you seem to be implying, I’m sure she would have shaken me down for cash by now.”

The lie was flawless, perfectly executed because Alex himself probably believed it.  But the boys had been around him long enough – heard and seen enough of his misogynistic tendencies and derogatory remarks – to be fooled.  Here, as was too often the case, their doubts had been placed on the wrong person.  They would not make that mistake again.

“We’re done here,” Harry said evenly, definitively.  “I don’t care how much it costs, or how long it takes, I don’t even care if I ever get to sing again.  But I don’t work for you anymore.  I never want to be associated with you or this label for the rest of my life.”

“You can’t do that.  We have a contract – _you_ have an obligation.”  Alex was used to people complying when he spoke, and scowled as Harry turned his back on him.

Harry walked out of the room without looking back, without arguing any further, and was surprised to find that the rest of his band, and even a few members of their team, had gone with him.

Once in the hallway, Harry leaned his forehead against the wall.  He pounded his fist once, twice against it before three pairs of arms found their way around him.  Harry calmed his breathing and willed back the tears that were threatening to spill over.  “I’m sorry, I had to do it – to walk out on this.”  He craned his neck around to look into each of their eyes in turn.  “I had to.  But it is _my_ choice, and you don’t have to make the same one.”

There was a beat of silence before Niall clapped him heavily on the shoulder.  “Fuck ‘em all.  We’re with you, mate.  Until the very end.”

“Which this may very well be,” Louis added with a sardonic smirk that attempted to conceal the pain simmering beneath it – of all of them, he was the one who most deserved retribution for his assumptions.  Harry’s brows drew together, but Louis reached up to ruffle his curly head before he could say something sentimental and depressing.  “Let’s go get your girl back, yeah?”


	6. More Than This

The next couple months were absolute chaos.  Powerful lawyers duked it out behind closed doors and only kept the band members informed of any important updates.  While their professional futures were being decided, Harry spent his time searching for Mia.  She’d moved out of her last residence and appeared to have a new phone number.  He’d contacted the few family members she was on good terms with and begged her former station manager for information, but no one seemed to know where she was.  Short of hiring a private detective, he was out of ways to try and find her.

After two months of negotiations, everyone finally came to an agreement.  One Direction was free of their contract, but they would not own the rights to the songs on the record they’d just produced.  There would be no touring the album, and although the boys were proud of it, they could always write more songs and more than anything they felt bad for the fans that would never get to hear them performed live.

Alex was fired, though the allegations against him were never formally confirmed or denied.  Harry would have preferred to see him behind bars, but given the lack of evidence and witnesses and the amount of time that had passed, it was better than nothing.

“I’m sorry to put you through all that,” Harry said to his band mates as their car pulled away from signing the last of the paperwork, honest regret in his voice.

“Eh, I’m thinking Zayn had the right idea after all – going solo and all that.”  Niall cackled at his own joke while Louis glared at him.  “Oh put yer bitchface away, Lou, you know what I mean.  Five albums in five years is a lot.  This could be good for all of us.”

“Nice clean break – no drama,” Liam added and Louis cocked an eyebrow at him.  “Well, no more drama anyway.”

“What if some of us don’t _want_ to go solo?” Louis asked no one in particular.

“We don’t have to decide right this minute.  We can… well, we can just be on a ‘break’ for now.”  Liam turned to face the fourth member of the band, who had yet to speak.  “What do you think, Harry?”

Harry turned at the sound of his name, but had only been half-listening to the conversation after he’d pulled out his phone.  “Hmm?”

“Liam was just asking what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives – no big deal.”  Louis crowded in close to his best friend and peered down at the screen that had been holding his attention.  Of course Mia’s face was staring back at him, and Louis sighed.  “Mia still MIA?”

Niall snorted at the unintended pun, but Harry didn’t seem to notice.  “I need to find her.  She needs to know that I—“  Harry very nearly teared up just thinking about how much she’d been through, the burden she’d been carrying alone.  And now she was off on her own in a new city, maybe even had the baby by now, and once again he wasn’t there for her.  “I just need to see that she’s okay.”

Louis joined Harry in staring at the smiling faces of him and Mia in the photo.  They had taken a spontaneous trip to Disneyland and Harry had been so excited that he made the rookie mistake of posting it to Instagram in real-time.  It took all of an hour for the hordes of screaming girls to rush them, and suddenly Louis had an idea.  “Fuck me!”

“No offense, Lou, but I don’t think that’ll make him feel any better.”

Louis gave Niall the finger even as his attention stayed focused on Harry.  “I think sometimes you forget that you have free, instantaneous access to millions of pairs of eyes all over the planet.”  Harry still looked confused and Louis snatched his phone, opening up the social media app and navigating to the live video function and centering Harry in the frame.  “You may not be able to find her, but I guarantee somebody on the fucking internet can.”

***

Mia thought she was being paranoid at first.  The guy at the grocery store staring just a little too long from the other end of the aisle.  The teenage girl snapping a photo from the car beside her at a stoplight.  The middle-aged woman trying a little too hard to be staring at her phone even as her eyes kept glancing up as Mia walked by.  The occasional hint of recognition still followed her, her very large midsection tending to draw attention in its own right, but this was too much in too short a time for such a small town and it put her on edge.

But the first truly bizarre – and slightly terrifying – encounter occurred on her way home from an early morning walk.  Despite her recent unease, the night had left Mia feeling restless and she figured there wouldn’t be many people out and about just after sunrise.  She was right, which made the sudden appearance of a very excited college student all the more startling.

“Mia Harding?!”  It was both a question and an exclamation, and Mia very nearly lost her already tenuous balance.  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”  She reached out as if to help steady her, but Mia waved her off.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The girl could not stop beaming, and Mia was starting to wonder if maybe she was still a little drunk from the night before.  “Uhm, it’s… fine.  I guess.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.  I mean, I knew Harry was sweet and I always shipped you two, but, like, when I saw the video my heart was just—“ her hands simulated a dramatic explosion in the vicinity of her chest, “and now you’re here and- oh my god, does he know you’re here?”

“Wait, what?”  Mia’s mind was working much slower than this girl’s mouth.  “What video?  What are you—?”

“Oh my _god_ , you haven’t seen the video?  It’s, like, everywhere.  All over social media.”  Well that explained it – Mia had never bothered recreating the accounts she’d deleted when she and Harry had first started dating.  “Here – I have it in my saved videos.  _So_ cute,” she cooed, shoving her phone in Mia’s hand before she could protest.

Mia stared at an image of Harry’s face – it was grainy in the dim light and he looked a bit thinner than she remembered, a light stubble shadowing his jaw, but he still managed to take her breath away.  Although Mia wasn’t sure she was ready to see whatever it was Harry had to say, the decision was made for her when the girl reached out and pressed play.

“ _Uhm, hi.  Everybody_.”  Harry tugged at his bottom lip – a gesture Mia recognized as one of awkward discomfort; as much as he enjoyed being on stage in front of a crowd, Harry wasn’t usually so behind-the-scenes about his personal life.  “ _First of all, I wanted to thank everyone that’s continued to support the band and our music, even if we can’t perform it for you.  I am so grateful, and I love you all very much._ ”  The girl, who was watching raptly over Mia’s shoulder, squealed – clearly that was one of her favorite lines.  _“You’re the best fans in the world… which is why I need to ask for your help.  I’m trying to find someone.  You might have seen her with me before.  Her name is Mia.”_   Mia wanted to squeeze her eyes shut against the stinging building up behind them, but let the tears run down her cheeks when she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Harry’s distraught face.  _“She is strong and brave and beautiful, and there is something I need to ask her.”_  A secretive smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth that made Mia’s heart flip-flop in her chest.  _“So if you happen to see her around, just, uhm… politely let her know I’m looking for her.  Please.  Okay.”_   The camera lingered and Harry flashed a peace sign before shaking his head and mumbling something that might have been ‘what the fuck’ over the unmistakable sound of Louis’ laughter as the recording cut off.

“What did I tell you?  So romantic and just, _ugh_ , right?”  When Mia handed back the phone, her hand was shaking and the other was being used to swipe at the moisture under her eyes.  “Hey, are you okay?”

“Fine, just—“  Mia blew out a quick breath and shrugged.  “I’m fine.”

“So…”  The girl bit her lip and shifted on her feet as she debated internally, but eventually her fangirl instincts won out.  “Can I get a picture?  You look gorgeous, I swear.  Please?”

Mia glanced longingly toward her apartment building just a few blocks away.  If she had been thinking clearly, she probably would have declined.  But her head was clouded with Harry’s soft, deep voice and she found herself nodding dumbly, managing some semblance of a smile for what would undoubtedly be the girl’s ten minutes of fame before shuffling off to the safety of the high-rise.

Mia greeted the concierge at the door and pressed the elevator button about a hundred times and waddled in and up and down the hall and through her door where she collapsed in a confused exhausted heap on the couch. 

She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry or scream or maybe just nap, but she did know she wanted to watch Harry’s video on a loop for the rest of her life.  She spent hours looking up news articles and interviews until she had pieced together what had happened to the band.  Eventually, though, she always ended up back on the video that somehow made her both wither and bloom at the same time.

Surely Harry had heard her radio interview by now – knew that she was used and damaged and had likely ruined his entire future as a musician.  But he was looking for her.  In the video, Harry was kind and humble and a little bit cheeky and he was _looking_ for her.  What the hell did that mean?  He should hate her for everything she’d done to him.  Maybe he just wanted closure?

Her thoughts were cut short as a tightening sensation clamped down on her stomach.  Mia let out a surprised huff of air, wincing and rubbing soothing circles into the walls of her abdomen until the pain dispersed about 30 seconds later.

“Heya, little lady, finally ready to come out of there?” she asked, which earned an uncomfortable kick to her ribs.  “Don’t worry – the world is so much bigger than you can imagine.”

As Mia got up to head toward the back of the apartment to ensure everything was ready just in case her contractions were the real deal, an unusual sight out the window caught her eye – a quickly growing crowd of people on the sidewalks that were already spilling out onto the street, blocking all the building’s exits and soon to be stopping traffic.

“Shit.”  Mia fumbled for her phone and a quick search found the picture from that morning plastered all over the internet.  “Shitshitshit.”  She was apparently trapped in this building and even an ambulance probably couldn’t get through that crowd without causing more harm than good and maybe the police would have to come and this whole thing would turn into a circus and in the end she’d still be alone and—

On the verge of hyperventilating, Mia took measured breaths, trying not to focus on anything but the pull of air into her lungs and then releasing it back out.  She repeated the practice long enough for another contraction to stab her pelvis and she bit her lip to keep from crying – not out of pain, necessarily, but more fear.

If he hadn’t already, Harry was going to find out soon enough where she was living.  She wasn’t sure she wanted Harry there, but she was fairly certain she needed him.  Mia didn’t trust herself not to break down over the phone, but her trembling fingers did manage to type out a quick text message – the address to her apartment along with a short message:   _Bring security.  And hurry._

***

Harry’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw the message from an unknown number.  He’d tried immediately to call the number back after receiving the text, but there was no answer.  He had half a mind to pour his heart out over voicemail, desperate for her just to hear how much he loved her, but she deserved to see the sincerity in his eyes when he told her he wanted all of her, forever.

The boys had been hanging out together at Harry’s house – the most central location of all their residences – but he suddenly ran upstairs and hastily stuffed some clothes into an overnight bag.

“S’wrong?” Louis asked, having followed Harry to the second floor.  “Where are you going?”

“I have to go to Miami.  I’m- she’s in Miami.”

“Who’s in Miami?” Niall asked, poking his head over Louis’ shoulder.

“Who do you think?” Liam called from somewhere down the hall.

“Mia’s in Mia-mi?” Niall sniggered.  “And I thought _you_ loved a good pun, H.”

“Alright, when do we leave?” Louis asked.

Harry ran a hand through his hair and soon all three of his best friends were standing in the doorway staring at him expectantly.  “You don’t have to go.  I mean, I can just—“

“You’re not the only one that’s got some apologies to make,” Louis said quietly.

Harry knew the admission was hard for him, and simply nodded.  “Alright then.  Guess one of us ought to book a flight.”

***

The band had earned a certain amount of leniency from the airlines over the years, but having been across the pond in another country, it had still taken Harry and the boys the better part of a day before they were finally in sight of Mia’s apartment building.  He’d tried calling multiple times since the plane landed, but was once again met with silence.

“Holy shit,” Niall said when their driver was forced to stop the car several  blocks from the high rise.  “There must be thousands of people here.”

Harry now realized that this must have been why she’d requested the extra muscle.  Though he desperately wanted to spend his future with Mia by his side, he regretted forcing her back into the public eye when all she’d ever wanted was to be left alone.  She was backed into a corner – again – and it was entirely his fault.  “I’m going in.”

“Perhaps we should wait,” Paul suggested from the front seat.  “At least until we can secure the area.”

“Maybe Paul’s right – she’ll be safe as long as she stays inside the building,” Liam added, and at the moment Harry hated him for thinking with his head instead of his heart because she was so close and all he wanted was to have her in his arms again.

Paul thought for a moment.  “Give me 20 minutes.”

Twenty minutes was optimistic.  Once the fans saw their favorite security guard as well as half a dozen others beginning to clear a path, there was chaos.  Word started to spread that the boys were either on their way or already there and it took nearly an hour of anxious waiting in the car before enough of the street had been blocked off that they could pass through.  He’d still have to wade through the relentless swarm that had amassed around the entrance door, but the situation was probably as controlled as it was going to get.

Harry turned to the other occupants of the vehicle and tried to choose his words carefully.  “I think I should go in there alone.”

“Sure,” Louis nodded, though he couldn’t quite hide his hurt.

Niall, however, was downright relieved.  “Go right ahead.  I don’t wanna be goin’ out in that mess.”

“It’s just- I’m grateful you all came here with me.  Truly.  But she’s been through a lot, and—“

“You don’t want to overwhelm her.  We get it, mate.”  Liam clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder and gave him a warm smile.  “Go get your happily ever after.”

By the time Harry got to the 11th floor, his pulse was pounding.  There were a thousand declarations of love battling their way up his throat, but saying them to Mia’s face would be an entirely different beast – she had rejected him several times, and there was every chance that she simply did not want the kind of future he could provide. 

Harry mentally rehearsed exactly what he wanted to say at least three times before hoping for the best and steeling himself for the worst.  He blew out a quick breath and rapped softly on the door she’d specified in her text.

No answer.

He knocked again, louder this time.  When the door remained closed, he pressed his ear up against the wood and jiggled the handle.  It slid open in his grasp and he popped his head into the room, half expecting that she’d purposely given him the wrong apartment number and a surprised little old lady would begin throwing her shoes at his unwelcome entrance.

“Mia?” he called.  “Are you in here?”

Harry stepped fully into the room then, reassured by the horrendous artwork on the walls that this was, in fact, Mia’s apartment.

After crossing the living room, there was a short hallway.  He made for the room at the end that had light spilling onto the hardwood floors, but was brought short by the first room he passed.  His breath caught at sight of the white crib resting in front of light pink walls that both contrasted and complimented the dozens of black and white vinyl album covers that decorated them.  It was so perfectly Mia – equal parts delicate and hard core rock and roll – and his heart ached in his chest.

A muffled scream reached his ears, yanking him from his reverie, and Harry raced down to the second bedroom where he was again stopped in his tracks by what he saw.  Mia was kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed, her forehead resting on the mattress and hands curled into the fabric of the blanket as the rest of her crouched body swayed back and forth.

“Mia?” he asked again, crouching down to her level and placing a hand on her lower back.  She cried out again and wrapped an arm around her stomach.  “What’s wrong?”  But even as he asked the question, he already knew the answer.  Mia was in labor.  “How- how long?”

Mia kept her face in the crook of her arm as she caught her breath – she couldn’t bear to look at Harry now that he knew her deepest shame.  “How long has it been since I texted you?”

“Shit – that was hours ago!”

“Mmm, told you to hurry,” she mumbled, half-joking.  “Couldn’t get out.  Need to—“ she groaned, shifting her hips slightly against the weight pressing down between them, “—get to the hospital.”

“How far apart are the contractions?”

“Dunno.  Lost track.”  She had tried to time them for a while, but once they were under the five minute mark, her brain had been clouded with pain and it was all she could do to just keep breathing.  “Hurts.”

As if on cue, another contraction coiled around her insides.  Her body trembled with the overwhelming force, the unbearable pressure exploding in her core.  At its peak, something gave way and warm liquid began running down her thighs and pooling on the floor. 

Mia had barely been holding it together, but when her water broke, so did she.  She had been in so much pain for so long, and now she was covered in this sticky gross wetness and could not stop whimpering and her ex-boyfriend was there to witness it all.

“It’s okay.  You’re okay.”  Harry wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed, continuing to whisper words of assurance even though she didn’t seem to be listening to him.  She continued crying until another contraction took her breath away and she began choking on the air that desperately sought its way into her lungs.  “Breathe it away, love.”  He kept his voice as calm as possible, stroking back the hair that hid her face from him.  “Nice and slow, okay?  With me.”

Eventually Mia was able to match his pattern of breathing until the pain became tolerable, and then slumped forward in exhaustion and humiliation.  She felt Harry pull away and briefly panicked that he would not return.  It was only a few seconds later, though, that he had an arm around her waist and was pulling her to her feet.

Resigned to the embarrassment, Mia allowed Harry to tug off her now soiled clothing.  Using the towel he’d retrieved from the bathroom, he bent down and gently wiped off each of her legs before dropping down to absorb the mess on the floor.  His touch was so gentle and intimate, and more silent tears streaked down her face. 

After tossing the cloth into the bathtub, he went to the closet and pulled out a dress that he promptly draped over her head.  She held on to him for balance as she slipped her arms through the holes.  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were red and her hair was in knots and Harry found her absolutely breathtaking.  He couldn’t help reaching out to cup her face in his hands, tilting her chin up in an attempt to get her to finally meet his gaze.

Mia didn’t know how she expected Harry to be looking at her now that he knew the truth – perhaps in the same way she often viewed herself, with pity or accusation or even disgust.  But he was looking at her the same way he’d always looked her – with tenderness and compassion.  With love.  She curled her fingers around his wrists as her eyes continued their endless stream of tears.  “Thank you.”  The words were not nearly enough, but they were all she had and she gave them anyway.

Harry didn’t even have enough time to say ‘you’re welcome’ before Mia’s knees buckled with the onslaught of another contraction and holy _shit_ they needed to get to the hospital.

Having called Paul as they slowly made their way down to the first floor, a team of guards was waiting in the lobby to escort them to the car.  As they approached the wall of windows, a sea of bodies was pressed against the glass and a dull roar washed over them as the crowd noticed their arrival.  “I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered as she clung tighter to him.  “This is all my fault.”

Mia didn’t comment, just allowed the large bodies of the men around her to crowd in close as they left the building.  The feeling of being swarmed was never one she’d gotten used to, and now she was particularly sensitive to the hands and feet and faces slipping through their circle of protection, to the questions and comments being lobbed at them from all sides. 

It took precious time to move them safely – too much time.  About two-thirds of the way to the car Mia’s body seized up again.  She flung herself into the safety of Harry’s embrace, her arms wrapping around his neck as he supported most of her weight.  Tears soaked his shirt and he had to bend down to whisper directly in her ear in order to be heard above the excited screams that surrounded them.

Cameras were flashing and videos were being recorded and it would take all of half a second before people started to realize what was going on.  They had to get to the car.  _Now._

As soon as Mia was able to regain her balance, Harry pushed forward against the leader of their little pack.  Everyone seemed to sense the change in tone, the sudden urgency, because it only took a few more moments for the security team to make it to the rear door of their awaiting vehicle.

At first, Harry had rolled his eyes at the stretch SUV his team had rented, thinking it was unnecessarily large and flashy and would only draw more attention to their movements.  But he was grateful for it now as he dragged Mia in through the open door and they finally had space to breathe again.

“Get us to the hospital,” Harry begged Paul as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Already cleared a path,” he replied, pulling smoothly away from the curb.  Well, not smoothly – there was a fair bit of honking and external maneuvering of the crowd required to get them through, but it didn’t take long to get back on the main road.

The rest of the boys had all been waiting patiently in the back when Harry and Mia came tumbling in with panicked looks on their faces and radiating nervous energy.

“What’s going on?” Niall asked.

Liam noted the way Mia’s hand was pressed to her abdomen and her face was scrunched up in pain.  “Is something wrong with the baby?”

Louis would have rolled his eyes, but perhaps the situation was only obvious to him because he’d seen his mum go through this so many times.  “I think the only thing wrong is that the baby’s in _there_ ,” he pointed to Mia’s stomach, “and wants to be out _here_.”  When Mia looked at him then, there was a mixture of fear and shame in her eyes and Louis felt the full weight of guilt over how he’d treated her.  “I know it probably doesn’t mean shit to you right now, but I’m so fucking sorry.”

Mia nodded and looked up to the roof of the car as she tried to will more tears not to fall from her eyes – she was starting to get a headache from crying so much, which seemed an odd thing to notice amidst the all-consuming pain of labor.  “I thought you knew.  About the party – you said you knew, and I thought—“

Now Louis’ eyes were stinging because she actually believed that he’d known about the assault and had still treated her so callously.  “No, I just thought- I thought you were hooking up with him behind Harry’s back.  I thought- fuck, did I mention I was sorry?”  Louis thought about all his sisters.  How many times they had gone out to a club or a party and come home crying or distant.  How many times he’d brushed off their reactions as just a product of being drunk or overly emotional.  What if this had happened to them and they had been too scared to tell him?  “I should have listened to you.”

Mia shook her head and reached out to give his arm a little squeeze.  “Didn’t give you anything to listen to.  I know I- I should’ve told you what happened.  Especially you,” she craned her neck around to look up at Harry, against whom she was currently leaning.  “But I couldn’t.  I was scared and ashamed, and admitting it to you would just make it more real.”  She buried her face in her hands as if she could still hide from that truth.  “Everyone would know every horrible detail and it’s not your fault that people love you so much, but I couldn’t handle that kind of judgment when all I wanted to do was run and hide.”  She pulled in a deep breath as Harry tugged her hands back down, running his thumb down her cheek to catch a stray tear.  She gave him a small smile.  “Starting over just felt easier.”

Mia squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips together to keep from crying out in the confined space as more shocks of pain radiated from her core.  When it became too much, she turned her face into Harry’s shoulder and let his skin muffle the sounds of her distress.  She was trembling so violently in the wake of the contraction that Harry could barely keep his grip on her and he wanted nothing more than to provide the comfort that she had too long been without.

“I know this probably isn’t the right time, but Mia, you have to know – I want to be in this with you.  All of it.”

Mia was certain that the pain was distorting her sense of reality, because there was no way Harry could possibly still want to be with her.  “Don’t say that.  I can’t- you can’t say that.”

“I never stopped loving you, not for a second.”

Mia looked very much like she didn’t – or couldn’t – believe that, so Louis provided some backup.  “It’s true.  No matter what anyone else said, the idiot never stopped looking for you, never thought the worst of you even when everyone and everything else said otherwise.”

“Stop.”  It was more of a whimpered plea than a demand.

“Even got a ring from his mum, I think.  Wants to make an honest woman out of you.”

Mia had thrown an arm across her face and Harry carefully removed it – she needed to see the honesty in his expression.  “It’s true.  I’ve had it for almost a year now.”  A small cry escaped her lips that had more to do with the pain in her heart than in her abdomen.  “I love you, and no matter what’s happened, you will always be beautiful and perfect to me.”

She’d heard him say as much on video she’d practically memorized by now.  But to hear him say it here, now – in the midst of the culmination of the hardest moments of her life – it felt different.  And Mia might have told him what her heart had known all along, but her body was making other demands.  The pressure between her legs was building and caused her knees to fall open wider of their own accord. 

“Pull over.  Pull over and call an ambulance,” she begged.  The hospital was too far and she was not going to make it.

“That’s not a good idea,” Paul said, but began weaving through traffic at an accelerated rate.  “We’re being followed, and if we stop we’ll be swarmed and the paramedics won’t be able to get through anyway.  There are already police securing the entrance for us at the hospital – can you hold on just a little longer?”

His only answer was a scream that echoed through the car as Mia followed the instinct to bear down, a sudden burning sensation igniting deep inside as her child’s head moved down and unnaturally stretched all the tissues within her sensitive folds.

“Remember to breathe, love.  I love you so much, I’m so proud of you.”  Harry simply continued whispering small encouragements, reminding her that he was there and he was not going anywhere.  “You’re so strong, doing so good.”

“How would you know?”  There was a hint of hysteria in Mia’s tone as the reality of the situation began to set in.  “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.  I don’t know what I’m doing – none of us know what we’re doing!  God damnit!  Fuck!”

Niall seemed more amused by the profanity leaving her usually chaste lips than concerned by the likelihood of having to witness her give birth.  “Jesus.  Kid’s gonna come out with a potty mouth, keep talkin’ like that.”

“Do you want your balls ripped off?” Louis asked, cocking an eyebrow at Niall.  “’Cause that’s how you get your balls ripped off.”

 “Shh, just listen to your body,” Harry soothed, ignoring his friends’ banter as Mia rode out another contraction, unable to stop herself from pushing a little at the end.  When it was over, he kissed her temple and rested a hand on her stomach.  “Everything’s going to be alright.”

“How can you say that?”  He sounded so certain when Mia had never been less sure of anything in her life.

“Because, contrary to popular belief, I do in fact know what I’m doing.” Well, only sort of, but she certainly didn’t need to know that.

“Do you now?”  Several times Louis had caught him perusing the newborn shops or thumbing through the occasional baby book, but he hardly thought that qualified him to be able to deliver one.

“I’ve done some research,” Harry said, giving Louis a pointed stare.  “Even went to a few birthing classes.”  He enjoyed the looks of incredulity he got for that one – even from Mia.  He’d had to don a beanie and some very douche-y sunglasses and was the only solo male there, but he would do it again in a heartbeat for the knowledge it leant him in this moment.  “I just wanted to be prepared.  In case… you know, in case you wanted someone there with you.  And you wanted that someone to be me.”

“Haz—“

He could sense the hesitation in her tone, and he highly doubted it was due to his midwifery skills, but they really didn’t have much choice.  “Please, Mia.  Please trust me to do this for you.  Do you trust me?”

Ever since the encounter that had gotten her pregnant, Mia had been uncomfortable with anyone even looking between her legs.  But then another wave of pain and pressure crashed over her and any dignity she may have been clinging to crumbled.  “O-okay.”

“Okay,” Harry confirmed, pressing a quick kiss to her temple before sliding out to allow Louis to take his place supporting Mia from behind while he moved into her field of vision.  He began to slide the hem of her dress up and Mia squeezed her eyes shut – an automatic recoil to any intimate touch.  “Look at me,” Harry coaxed, pausing until Mia had locked eyes with him.  “It’s just me, love.  Just you and me.”

Mia nodded, her head rolling back when the urgent and unbearable need to push returned.  It continued on like that for several more contractions before a sliver of dark hair appeared at her opening and Harry’s eyes began to water.  “You’re doing so good – she’s right here, love.”

Mia wasn’t even consciously pushing anymore, and cried out when the force of another contraction widened her another unbearable inch, enough that Harry could curve his palm around the emerging cap of hair.  Her body was acting on its own, out of her control and before she was ready, and it was all too much.  Too much pain, too much fear; too much longing and too much regret.  She was supposed to be someone’s mother and she couldn’t even handle the first step in becoming one.  “I can’t.  I can’t- I don’t know if I can do this.”

They both knew she was referring to more than just the actual birth, and Harry took her hand and placed it where his had just been.  “Do you feel that?”  He positioned his hand over top of hers and kissed the top of her bent knee.  “We’re here – we’re both right here.  I’m here and I’ve got you.” 

For the first time since she’d been violated in that recording studio, Mia actually started to believe that maybe things would be alright – that Harry would make sure they were.  She pushed, more out of instinct than will, but let up again with a sharp cry when it felt like her body couldn’t possibly stretch any more.

“Breathe, Mia.  Go slow.”  Liam had been furiously scrolling through articles on his phone about how to deliver a baby in emergency situations, and didn’t particularly want her to end up with a bunch of stitches in places that made his stomach churn just thinking about.  “Just pant.  Like a dog.”

“Or like Louis when he has to run more’n ten feet.”

Louis would have whacked Niall in the back of the head for that comment, but Mia currently had both of his hands in a death grip, her harsh breaths turning into panicked whimpers. “Easy, easy,” Louis soothed, even as he managed to land a swift kick to Niall’s shins.

“Fuckin’ hell, Tommo, that really hurt!”  Everyone turned to give Niall an incredulous look.

“Balls.  Off.” Louis warned again in a stage-whisper.

“Did you mean it?” Mia asked, ignoring the chaos going on around her in favor of focusing on Harry’s calm, sure presence.  At the moment, his hands and his heart seemed to be the only things holding her together.  “When you said you wanted to do this with me.  Were you… I mean, did you mean that?”

Mia’s entire body was trembling – not all from physical pain – and Harry tried to choose his words carefully.  But then she arched back and gasped in surprise as another contraction rippled through her and the rest of the baby’s head slipped out in one fluid motion. 

“She’s so beautiful, Mia.  Just like her mum.”  And in that moment, as Harry cradled her little head half-born from the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he experienced such love that it could not be put into words.  And that was saying a lot for a songwriter.  “It doesn’t matter who helped make this child, she is _mine_.  I will be her father.”  Surprised by the conviction already in his words, he amended, “I mean, if you want me to – if you’ll have me.”

“Did you check for a cord wrapped around the neck?” Liam asked, having moved on to another post on preventing birth-related complications.

As the baby spun to the side, Harry slid his fingers down the back of her neck.  “Shit, it’s there, I feel it – what do we do?” he whispered frantically, the cool façade finally slipping for the first time.

“Just don’t push for a minute,” Liam cautioned.

That was easier said than done, and Mia’s fear ratcheted up a few more degrees.  “Is she gonna be alright?”

“Hey, we’re gonna figure it out,” Niall assured her – probably the first serious thing he’d said since she’d gotten in the car.  “We’d never let anything happen to our little girl.” 

Just their casual acceptance of Mia and the baby was almost enough to make her start crying again.

“Here – looks like you just slip the cord right over the head.”  Liam held his phone out for Harry to see the pictures that accompanied the simple procedure.

“Hurry.”  Mia could already feel her muscles starting to tense, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to hold back from the urge to bear down once it overtook her.

“I’ve got this.”  There was a fair amount of give in the cord, and Harry had no problem untangling it from around the baby’s neck.  “Okay, push!”

There was a chorus of encouragement around her, which gave Mia the strength to accomplish what her body was already doing anyway.  With one last primitive cry, the newborn fell into Harry’s arms and he quickly brought her up to settle on Mia’s chest.

There was a moment of awed silence that was quickly broken by Niall’s, “Holy fuck!”

“Oh for God’s sake, Niall, you did not just allow the first words this poor girl ever heard to be your crude Irish obscenities!”  The normal impact of Louis’ chastising was dampened by the small quaver in his tone.

 As he had been doing much of the last half hour, Harry tried to ignore the ceaseless banter of his bandmates and focus on Mia’s wellbeing.  Currently, she had one hand curled around her daughter and the other clamped over her mouth, which appeared to be stifling a sob.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked.  The boys were probably traumatized for life and they sure as hell weren’t getting their deposit back on the vehicle, but overall Harry thought it had gone rather well.  “Mia?” he prompted again when she didn’t respond.

Mia shook her head, then nodded, then let out a nervous laugh that dissolved into more tears as she looked down at the wailing infant in her arms.  “I just… I didn’t think I’d love her this much.” 

The confession broke Harry’s heart all over again – Mia had gone through all of this with no expectation of believing she’d actually want the child in the end. 

“She’s beautiful,” Louis said, pushing Niall aside and twisting around enough to get a good look at the baby.  Liam and Niall mumbled their agreement and a few awed congratulations.

“Haz?” Mia questioned.  Harry hadn’t said anything more – was just staring at them with wide eyes that held pure adoration – but took up Louis’ previous position and wrapped his arms around Mia, resting his chin on her shoulder so he could stare down at that red, squishy face.  “Hey, little one,” she said through a fresh bout of tears.  “Say hi to your daddy.”

Mia bit her lip and craned her neck to catch Harry’s expression.  She hadn’t really meant to say that out loud, and Harry hadn’t really said much at all since she was born.  Maybe he had just been saying whatever he had to at the time in order to get her through this.  Or maybe he now saw the enormity of this responsibility and had simply changed his mind.

Harry turned to look at Mia and kissed away the worry lines wrinkling her forehead.  Then he reached under her arm to brush his knuckle across the baby’s cheek, grinning like a fool.  “She looks just like me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to those who read, kudos, and/or comment for this shorter fic (in terms of story length; definitely not in how long it took to write/upload haha). I may add an extra epilogue chapter if the mood strikes, but the main body of the story is complete. Love you all!
> 
> xx


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